


linger like a tattoo kiss

by bigfootsflannel



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood, College, First Kiss, M/M, Pining, some confidence issues, sylvain travels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26598493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigfootsflannel/pseuds/bigfootsflannel
Summary: Felix is twenty-three when he realizes he's in love with his best friend. He's maybe been in love with his best friend forever.[Sylvix Week 2020 Day Two - Pining/Longing]
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, brief Felix/other person and Sylvain/other person
Comments: 11
Kudos: 75
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	linger like a tattoo kiss

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello!!
> 
> even though I tend to think of these kids as being European in modern settings, I myself am American and since I switched my brain off for a lot of this, Fodlan is now much more American!!!
> 
> this is the first time I've written something that wasn't at least mostly in chronological order. each segment is labeled with Felix's age, but let me know if things aren't clear enough or anything - I readily admit this might be the case. related, if the timeline/ages ever don't add up, make no mistake: I'm a fool who is bad at math and also hates editing
> 
> also, i listened to... a lot of t swift while writing this.

**twenty-three.**

Sometimes, Felix feels like he’s going to spend his entire life waiting. Waiting, most likely, for something that was never going to happen.

The problem started when he was twenty-three and he realized that he was, perhaps, a little bit in love with his best friend.

It’s always been an ill-conceived thing, but when he tries to look back and untangle everything, he thinks it might have simply been impossible to avoid. He’ll try to figure out where along the line he had reached a fork in the road and barreled down the wrong path after Sylvain, he finds that there never _was_ a different path.

Of course, he doesn’t think about it in those terms. It’s a bit too poetic, and he’s not the one who comes up with pretty lines. Although, occasionally, he’ll sit back and think to himself, _What would Sylvain make of all this? What would he say?_

But it isn’t productive, so whenever he starts to feel himself getting a bit too nostalgic or emotional, he goes for a run or heads to the gym to beat the shit out of a punching bag until he’s too tired to think about much of anything.

(“I’m not in any position to tell you what to do, but - ” Ashe might say on a day like that.

“Good. Then don’t,” he would probably say back, because he’d never cared for his friends’ good intentions.)

He’s started to receive postcards from Sylvain, from various beautiful places, with that surprisingly neat handwriting on the back. The notes are full of stupid little things like, _I woke up in a hammock this morning, thinking of you_ or _I rented a car this weekend, and get this! I had to change the tire! You’d be so proud of me_ . He hasn’t seen him in months now and he hates how much just the thought of Sylvain makes him _yearn_.

He puts them up on his fridge. His apartment has always been so bare, and it feels like a strange but ultimately welcome departure from that to have actual personal effects on display. They’re hung up with the glossy sides against the fridge, so that Sylvain’s handwriting is faced outward, brightly colored penmanship staring up at him every time he grabs himself a cold drink. Sylvain’s handwriting had always been so surprisingly neat, and imagining him actually sitting down to write to Felix tugged a little bit at his heart.

He almost wants to write back to him. Since Sylvain is going through various countries with no real itinerary, he’s nearly impossible to reach by phone and as much as he knows Sylvain would find it hilarious to get a postcard from Fhirdiad that is hardly an option either, but he still has an email address. He doesn’t know how often it gets checked, but at least it would be one way to make the conversation less one-sided.

What makes him crack is when another piece of mail arrives from Sylvain. This time it’s in an envelope, and he’s apparently bought himself a Polaroid camera because the envelope has a bunch of pictures in it. Some of them are selfies, some where he clearly hasn’t figured out the right angle to hold the damn camera, and some of them are blurry or never properly developed, but they punch the air out of Felix’s lungs nonetheless.

And that’s when he starts to realize the enormity of it. He’s always known that he is closer to Sylvain than anyone else in the world, but he does still take his friendships with everyone else seriously. But he’s realizing that he doesn’t react to Sylvain the way he does anyone else. He hasn’t seen Ingrid in a while since she moved away, and seeing her now probably wouldn’t cause a physical reaction. But here he is, standing in his living room with his heart suddenly racing because of a still image of Sylvain, and he knows he’s fucked.

He sits down in front of his computer and opens his email account to start a draft. Instead, he stares at the blank screen for far too long.

Felix has never been good with words to begin with, and now there’s a whole lot going on in his mind and in his heart that he wouldn’t know how to express to Sylvain even if he wanted to.

_Dear Sylvain,_

No. It’s too formal. And ‘dear’ doesn’t sound right (even though Sylvain does sign off his postcards with hearts next to his name).

_Hey Sylvain,_

That doesn’t sound natural either. Perhaps he’s overcorrected.

_Sylvain,_

It’s fine. It’s to the point; that’s what anyone would expect of him, anyway. It’s a salutation, Sylvain isn’t even going to think about it for more than half a second when he opens the email.

_I got the pictures you sent me. You seem happy._

That probably went without saying. He considered erasing it, but decided ultimately to leave it; it was true, after all, and the radiance in Sylvain’s expression was in part what had brought him to the point where he was writing at all. He couldn’t express what he felt in words, so this observation would have to be close enough.

_You also look like a stereotypical tourist. I can only imagine how embarrassing you’re being._

_I miss you._

Altogether, it isn’t a very cohesive message. And it isn’t particularly long, either. But ultimately that was going to have to be good enough for him, and he suspected that Sylvain would be able to read between the lines anyway to know that what he wants to say is something that’s a bit too “mother hen” to have in writing. ‘I hope you’re being safe’, maybe. Or at least, ‘I care about you and I want to know when you’re coming home.’

He hits send before he can think twice about it, but when he goes to the store a few hours later to distract himself from wandering down a spiral of thoughts about Sylvain, he ends up buying a notebook, which he starts to fill with the words that he knows he can’t actually say to him.

He’s never had much of a way with words, but he’s also never been able to sort out whatever this is with Sylvain any other way, so he thinks it might help.

\---

**sixteen.**

In considering it a bit further, it might be inaccurate to say that it started when he was twenty-three. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that it starts when he’s sixteen and he’s helping Sylvain pack up his things to leave town and it feels like cold fingers have reached into his chest and started squeezing.

It isn’t as though he hasn’t known that this day was coming. He helped Sylvain get his act together and actually get college applications out on time. There is a picture that he won’t admit to already having framed and put up in his bedroom of the two of them at Sylvain’s graduation. He knows that they can’t spend their entire lives living just a short drive away from each other, always present; hell, they already see each other less often than they did when they were little kids. But it still feels like a little bit like the world is ending, no matter how ridiculous he feels like he must be for letting it get to him.

“Do you suppose I’ll have any reason to wear this?” Sylvain is asking from somewhere in his closet, and Felix doesn’t even have to look at whatever ‘this’ is to know that the answer is most likely no, but also that Sylvain will still end up packing it anyway.

He’s seated on Sylvain’s bed, and the most help that he’s provided so far has simply been to make sure that he doesn’t get too far off task. He knows that attempting to knock any sense into him beyond that might be too tall of an order for him to actually pull off.

“For fuck’s sake,” he says when he actually does look to see what it is that Sylvain is questioning packing, because it’s a bright green blazer that would only be appropriate for a garish costume party.

“What? It’s not that bad,” he says with a bright laugh, and already he’s tugging the hoodie he has on off so that he can replace it with the blazer. It only looks mildly better on him than it does on the hanger, but no less ridiculous. “Get a load of me.”

“I’ve already feasted my eyes plenty,” he says. “Leave that thing here. You’ll only have so much room.”

Sylvain lets out a huff of air indignantly, but it’s still in good humor as he takes the jacket off and puts it back where he had found it. “You might have a point,” he admits, pushing hangers aside one by one as he inspects the clothing hanging from them. He pauses and stares at something for a moment, though from his angle Felix can’t see what it is. “I have to make sure I keep space for what’s important. Like this.”

“Like what?”

What Sylvain pulls out next is a sweater that Felix hasn’t seen in a while. “Do you remember this?”

“Of course I do,” he responds, rolling his eyes. He had given the sweater to him a couple of years ago, and despite Sylvain’s birthday being at the start of summer, it had been well-received (well, well-received plus some teasing, which truth be told he probably would have had to expect with any gift that he had given him).

“Still one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received,” he says, and if he didn’t sound as sincere as he does, then Felix might have gotten up and decked him.

Still, even as much as it might be somewhat nice to think that Sylvain thinks that something like that is an essential, he also has to be practical. “I don’t think that it’ll fit you right anymore,” he says.

“No?” he asks as he holds it up to himself. “I didn’t think I’d done that much growing.”

Felix shrugs. “You’ve filled out,” he says, and after a second, he finds himself adding, “I don’t mean that in a bad way.”

If Sylvain had any sense of chill in his body, he would have simply told Felix that he knew what he had meant. Unfortunately, he does not, so a grin spreads across his face as he asks, “Why, Felix, are you telling me that you like the way my body looks?”

Huffing, he shakes his head. “You looked awkward as hell in middle school and by now you’re more proportional.”

“Proportional,” he repeats and he laughs, his head thrown back like Felix had said something far funnier than he had. “That’s probably the best compliment you’ve ever given me.”

If there’s anyone on the planet who has earned genuine compliments from him, it’s Sylvain, but he’ll let him have his moment; something stirs in him at the thought that he’s made him that happy, even as he tries to tamp it down. It’s just his cursed sentimentality, rearing its ugly head when he knows that he won’t get to see his best friend as much once he’s gone off to university. “And that’s as good as you’re getting,” he says, almost feeling like he’s scrabbling to avoid falling too much into his feelings about Sylvain leaving.

“I’ll take what I can get,” he says with a little laugh, looking down to focus on folding up the sweater so that it can be packed away.

(There’s something fascinating in watching Sylvain. Most people would assume that he’d be a little more careless with this sort of thing, but he’s anything but. He’s surprisingly into details, and there’s a comfort in the way that he keeps things orderly.)

“After all,” Sylvain has carried on speaking again, “who knows when the next time I’ll get to even be insulted by you will be?”

And somehow, that does it. For all that he’s been handling all of this pretty well, Felix is suddenly powerless to how his eyes start to burn with tears. He wishes that Sylvain wouldn’t notice - wouldn’t think anything of how he’s suddenly gone quiet - but Sylvain also wouldn’t be Sylvain if he didn’t.

“Woah, hey,” he says, and now he’s abandoning what he’s doing and joining him on the bed, all because of that awful needy part of Felix that can’t be silenced.

“I’m fine,” he tries to tell him, but he knows it isn’t as effective as it should’ve been because his throat is too tight. He feels ridiculous. But Sylvain is reaching for his hands and cradling them in his own with far too much gentleness, and Felix can’t focus on his shame. “I just - ” He can’t finish the sentence, doesn’t know how to make it sound any less pathetic than it is.

“You know I’m not going anywhere, right? I mean, physically, yeah. I’ll be a few hours away,” he says, shrugging. “But nothing has to change. We can call each other, and video chat, and I’ll even write you letters by hand if that’s what you want.”

“That seems excessive,” he manages.

Sylvain smiles at him in that easy way of his, and something does unfurl a little bit in his chest. “But I’d do it,” he said. “Remember how hard I had to work on penmanship? It’d be kind of a waste if I didn’t use that once in a while.”

“Ingrid says that it’s better to take notes by hand,” he points out in a mumble.

“Anyway,” he says, his hands still holding onto Felix’s. His thumb is moving over his skin, and Felix wonders if he’s even aware of the motion. “We’re getting off base here - the point is that I’m still going to be just as big a part of your life now as I ever was.”

Felix almost wishes that he would have let the topic go, because thinking about it more is just going to make it more difficult to talk reasonably about it. “That’s not possible,” he says, because it _isn’t_. Even if Sylvain doesn’t have any kind of social life in his new town, he’s still going to be far enough away that it simply isn’t feasible to be around as much as he always has been. He tries to explain as much, but then his hands are being squeezed and Sylvain barrels on.

“Fine, maybe you’re right, it won’t quite be the same,” he says. “I won’t be able to be there at the drop of a hat. But I promise, if you ever need me, I _will_ be there.”

There’s something about how very serious Sylvain seems about this that it shakes Felix a little; he knows that he’s far less of a carefree person than anyone gives him credit for, but he wasn’t quite expecting this reaction out of him. “Sylvain, it’s fine,” he tries.

“Hey, let me say this,” he presses on, shaking his head. “And then we can forget that this conversation happened, alright? Or… No, I’d rather you didn’t forget it, obviously. But we don’t have to talk about it again. Okay?”

Felix almost wants to try and brush him off and insist that they move on, but in all honesty there’s something about the way he’s got his hands in Sylvain’s that makes him a little bit more willing to just sit and listen to him. “Okay,” he says.

“Great,” he says. “Things are going to change - not just for me, but for both of us, I’m sure. And you hear all the time about people drifting apart as they get older, but…” He pauses for a moment, his brows furrowing and making him look genuinely troubled for a moment. “But that’s not going to happen between us. I… I know that you don’t really believe in fate, or destiny, or anything like that.”

He’s pretty sure that Sylvain doesn’t, either, based on the way that he casually tosses the terms around when he’s flirting with girls he knows literally nothing about, but he chooses not to say anything about it.

“There’s comfort in the thought, though,” Sylvain continues, and he isn’t quite looking at him anymore; for that matter, his eyes aren’t settling on anything for too long, like he’s unbearably anxious. “You know - thinking that no matter how much you mess things up, there are still some things that are always going to happen?”

Felix almost wants to stop him there and try to argue down the comment about messing things up, because he _knows_ the way he looks at himself, but he also knows there’s very little point in trying. Sylvain would argue that he’s just speaking in the abstract, even if they both know he’s not, and Felix would let him.

“And I kind of… You’re important to me,” Sylvain carries on, and then he stops for a second and laughs at his own words, shaking his head. “That’s an understatement. What I’m trying to say is… You’ve been part of my life, forever. And not everyone gets that, you know? This sort of thing doesn’t come along every day.

“I hesitate to… Yeah, actually, I won’t,” he pauses and there’s something in his expression that isn’t quite recognizable, and Felix wants nothing more than to know what he was going to say. “But - it’s a feeling in my bones, you know, that you and I are going to come back to each other, always.”

“That’s… a lot,” Felix comments, though the words are soothing him more than he thought they would, curling around his heart in his chest like a cat settling in for a nap.

“Yeah, it is, a bit,” he agrees. “But you get what I’m saying, right? This isn’t a goodbye, not even close to it, because I’m never letting go of you.”

“I don’t intend to let go of you, either,” he says, because no matter how assured Sylvain sounds in this, he can’t let this conversation be too one-sided.

“I’m glad. Though, you know, not surprised. There are some things that you can just trust in, intuitively. It’s like… Okay, I don’t know any way of putting this that you won’t make fun of me mercilessly for,” he says.

He doesn’t feel like he could truly make fun of Sylvain at this point, not with how painfully sincere he has been and the things that seems to do to him. Still, he says, “I’d probably find a way to make fun of you regardless.”

“You would,” he agrees. Finally, he lets go of one of his hands, rubbing the back of his own neck. “So I’ll put it in a horribly ‘bad poetry’ sort of way. The sun goes away, every single night. But you’re never worried about it, you know? It’s like that. You’re the sun to me.”

“Technically, the sun doesn’t move.” There’s also the fact that in this scenario, he isn’t the one going away, but one thing at a time, he figures.

“And there it is,” Sylvain says, but he’s laughing. “I did know that.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Sylvain shakes his head. “Anyway, my point is made,” he says, and just like that he’s cool and casual again, lightly patting Felix’s hand and giving him a wink before getting back to his feet. “I’m not worried about our future, and you shouldn’t be either.”

All the same, those words stick around in Felix’s mind as he watches Sylvain return to the closet and pull out more articles of clothing as casually as he can manage considering the conversation they’ve just had.

Days and weeks pass and Sylvain leaves town and sometimes Felix feels like he can still feel the ghost of Sylvain’s palms against his own.

\---

**five.**

It’s true that they’ve been friends for their entire lives, or close enough to it that they may as well have been. It feels like he’s just always been a part of his life, ever present, sometimes in the background but more often right there in the foreground. It’s what makes it possible for him to survive going so long without seeing him: Sylvain has always come back to him, no matter what happened.

One of Felix’s first memories is of Sylvain. They’re playing in his yard and Sylvain has just had a growth spurt so his legs are longer and he can run even faster now. It’s frankly unfair, but Felix swears that he’s going to catch up to him one day; what’s more, he’ll be taller than Sylvain.

(That part never comes to fruition, no matter how fiercely he had believed it, but at least he does get to be faster than him.)

His dad hasn’t mowed the lawn quite recently enough and so his backyard is starting to look a bit rough, which is fine for their purposes because it helps them pretend that they’re out in the wilderness. It’s a lot of fun until Sylvain tells Felix to watch out for snakes in the tall grass and suddenly he’s a little bit terrified.

And because he’s scared, he’s being more cautious in his steps, though he also doesn’t want to seem like too much of a baby to Sylvain (spoiler alert: Sylvain is already very much aware of how much of a baby he is, and somehow isn’t completely put off by it) so he’s trying his best to keep up with him.

But then he sees something in the glass that’s dark and long and for just a fraction of a second, he’s sure that it’s a snake. He stumbles backwards for a moment to try to get away but instead finds himself falling down, his hands desperately darting out to catch himself.

Once he’s on the ground, Felix is able to take better stock of the situation: what he’d thought was a snake is, in reality, just a big stick that’s fallen from one of the trees. His ankle hurts, the skin on the palms of both of his hands have been rubbed raw from the fall, and even though he knows now that he’s not in immediate danger, that fear doesn’t dissipate so easily.

But then Sylvain is by his side almost immediately, kneeling down next to him. “What happened?”

There are already tears in Felix’s eyes as he lifts his hand to point at the stick, and it’s fortunate for him that Sylvain is as smart as he is because he doesn’t have to explain what startled him. The older boy stands up (in spite of Felix’s protests) and walks over to the stick. “Don’t worry, Fe, even if this was a real snake, I wouldn’t let it hurt you,” he says, and he throws it off into the woods as if to demonstrate.

“You’re brave,” Felix tells him.

Returning to his side, Sylvain shakes his head. “You’re plenty brave, too,” he says. “Are you okay?”

“My hands hurt,” he says. “And my ankle.”

With a little frown, he looks down at his ankle. “Wiggle your foot. If it’s broken, then you can’t move it,” he says, the words filled with all the authority and confidence a child can have. When Felix is able to do as he asked, he moves on to look at his hands. He rubs off the dirt that’s clinging to them, and says, “I know what’ll help.” He leans down and presses a quick kiss to both of his palms.

(Cooties aren’t really a thing either of them is aware of yet, and even if they were, cooties only applied to girls, right?)

“Is that better?” Sylvain asks.

“A little,” he says, and he feels like there’s surely something magical about Sylvain that makes him capable of taking his pain away.

“Good,” he says. “Let’s relax for a little bit, okay? Your dad’ll get mad if anything happens to you.”

That makes sense to Felix, and so they both lay back to stare up at the sky. He can’t help himself but to scootch in a bit closer to his friend, tucking himself up close against him. “My mom used to sing to me when I got hurt.” The memory has just come back to him out of the blue, and he needs to share it.

Sylvain looks over at him and just kind of stares for a moment, looking thoughtful, before he says, “I don’t think I’ll be as good a singer as her.”

“You don’t - ” he starts, about to tell him that he really doesn’t need to sing for him, he’s done enough already and that’s not why he mentioned it, but then Sylvain is starting to sing anyway, and he’s a little… mesmerized.

Of course, he’s not as good a singer as Felix’s mother was. But he also doesn’t think that he’ll ever hear a voice as beautiful as hers was, and that’s just something that he’ll have to live with. His best friend has a pretty good voice too, and it feels nice to know that he would try to do this for him. So he closes his eyes, and just listens as Sylvain sings for him.

The next thing Felix is aware of, he’s waking up to the sound of Glenn making his way across the yard, calling them in because they need to wash up for dinner. He’s curled up against Sylvain and he’s filled with the kind of peace that he’ll find rare in the coming years; it’s also the kind of feeling that he comes to associate strictly with Sylvain. He doesn’t want to get up and grumbles all the way as Sylvain pulls him to his feet and they follow the older Fraldarius brother back inside.

And fuck, maybe he’s been in love with Sylvain for far longer than he thought. Maybe he’s been in love with Sylvain his entire goddamn life.

\---

**eighteen.**

The transition when Felix starts college is a lot easier.

“Are you sure that this piece of shit can handle this much of a load?” he asks as he shoves a box into the back of Sylvain’s car.

Sylvain turns back to him and feigns offense, gasping and bringing a hand to his chest. “Felix!” he protests. “She’s a member of the _family_.” As if family had meant much to either of them for a while now.

There’s a retort on the tip of his tongue about how counting on family will only lead to disappointment, but somehow it doesn’t seem like the right thing to say in this moment. “You’re going to get a flat tire,” he says instead. The tires look worn down, and they’re putting more of a load into the car than it’s surely seen in a while. “And you don’t know how to change a tire, do you?”

Leaning up against the side of the car, he shrugs. “I’m surprisingly handy,” he responds. “Besides, I’ve got my phone on me, and YouTube exists.”

"You're a lost cause," he says, but he suspects that Sylvain knows he doesn't mean it. He doesn't know when his insults towards him stopped having the proper amount of bite to them, but it's the reality he's stuck with now. 

“Maybe. But, on the plus side, I’ll get to show off and impress you with my resourcefulness, plus my newfound ability to change my tire,” he shoots back with a laugh.

Felix rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t doubt that this is exactly how things would end up going if something were to go wrong on the drive - Sylvain wants to take responsibility for things more often now. He bought this car with money that he earned working at a shitty job, even though he could’ve just as easily gotten his father to buy him a car when the one he’d driven before gave up. “Well, we’ll see about that. Just make sure we don’t end up stranded on the side of the road with all my shit in your car.”

“Such little faith in me. I promise you, we’ll get there just fine.”

They continue to move things from inside the Fraldarius household out to the car in relative harmony from there, and Sylvain genuinely does impress him with how he manages to fit everything in. “Hold on, I’ve got this,” he tells Felix as boxes get pulled out and set on the sidewalk in order for him to Tetris back into the car.

In the end, a duffel bag still ends up being squished into the space at Felix’s feet and it’s not the most comfortable arrangement, but it works out well enough. Even when they both agree that it’s the easiest way, Sylvain says, “We’ll just take some breaks so you can stretch your legs a bit.” It’s only a little bit frustrating how he shows he cares in such easy, casual ways.

Sylvain asks him if he wants to wait for Rodrigue to get home before they head out, but Felix shakes his head. He’s already said his goodbyes, and in any case it isn’t like it will be that long before there’s a break and he inevitably comes home (more for the sake of getting to see Ingrid again during their respective school breaks, but it does also mean that he’ll have to spend some time with his father), there’s no point in slowing themselves down.

Once they’ve been on the road for a little while, Sylvain turns the radio down a bit and glances over at Felix. “So, you haven’t told me much about the guy you’ll be living with yet,” he says. “You _have_ talked to him, right?”

“Yeah,” he responds, nodding. Not a whole lot, beyond what was necessary to get their lease set up and figuring out what furniture either of them would be bringing (his new roommate was delighted to hear that Felix’s father would arrange to have new furnishings delivered to the apartment for them), but enough for him to know that it would at least work reasonably well. “His name is Ashe. He’s doing a culinary program.”

“Neat,” he says with a small nod. “The fact that he cooks will come in handy. I was worried that you’d end up living off of, you know, instant ramen.”

A huff escapes Felix, but at the same time he knows that Sylvian, unfortunately, has a point. He’s never been terribly interested in learning to cook for himself, and he probably still wouldn’t have, not when it was easy to rely on takeout or easily microwaved foods. “I’m not going to rely on him to feed me all the time.”

“Just sometimes, got it,” he says with a little laugh. “Anyway, I’ll feed you plenty, too. I’ve been cooking more. Plus, we’ll go out. I’ve heard there’s a lot of good restaurants to check out.”

Sylvain has been talking for ages now about how he’s looking forward to being closer geographically to Felix again, but it feels more real now. They won’t quite be in the same town - he’s attending a smaller, liberal arts-focused school than Sylvain’s university, but there’s only a little over a half-hour drive between the towns. If Felix drove, then it would’ve even been feasible for them to live together somewhere in the middle.

“Sure. So long as you agree to let me pay once in a while,” he says, because he already knows that’s going to come up.

“Eh, I make no promises on that front.”

Felix rolls his eyes at him, turning his head to look back out the window. “Still, I…” he starts and then stops. He’s never been very good at expressing things like this, and for the most part he’s gotten lucky in that Sylvain generally seems to understand what he’s thinking without him having to properly articulate it. But sometimes he wants to actually say it.

When he doesn’t say anything for a moment, Sylvain prompts, “You…?”

“I’m looking forward to it. Spending time with you,” he says after another short pause, feeling as though he has to force the words out of his mouth.

Humming, Sylvain reaches over and lightly taps his hand with his own. The touch is brief, and he doesn’t take hold of his hand like Felix almost wishes he would, but it’s still a comfort nonetheless. “I’m looking forward to it, too, Fe.”

“I know we’ve been together this summer, but…” he starts again, shaking his head at himself. “Anyway. It’ll be good.”

“I know what you mean. You want some one-on-one Sylvain time, I can’t blame you,” he says with a soft laugh. It would be a little bit annoying, if that wasn’t, in all honesty, exactly what Felix is looking for. It’s true that they’ve had plenty of time to hang out when Sylvain came back for the summer, but a lot of that time was spent with their entire friend group, and Felix wasn’t about to fuss at him to spend time with just him - there was only so pathetic he was willing to be.

“Shut up,” is what he says anyway, and he ducks his head down to make sure that even if Sylvain looks over at him, he hopefully might not see the fact that his cheeks have gotten a bit pink.

He laughs, and the genuine smile Felix sees when he looks over at him is worth feeling a little bit pathetic. “Alright, alright, I won’t say anything.”

“Good, you better not.”

They fall into a comfortable enough silence after that, occasionally talking about things they saw on the side of the road, or their plans for the semester, and a couple of conversations about what he knows about Ashe, and in turn Sylvain’s roommates.

(Sylvain lives with two girls and has Felix questioned the arrangement since he moved in with them last year, but apparently Dorothea doesn’t take even an ounce of Sylvain’s shit. That makes Felix appreciate her immediately.)

There’s comfort in the familiarity of it, and he indulges in it, letting the feeling wrap around him like a security blanket. Even as they reach their destination (miraculously with all four tires still in working condition) and Sylvain helps him unload his things into his new apartment, he’s left with the feeling that things are going to be okay, something that he isn’t sure he’s felt this strongly in years.

Because they’re too tired after the drive up to bother with trying to figure out the instructions to construct Felix’s bed, they simply pull out his blankets and pillows and watch a movie on his laptop before falling asleep right there on the floor. Ashe isn’t due in for another couple of days, and there’s nothing but them in the quiet of the apartment.

Come the morning, Felix wakes up to the smell of coffee. His back feels stiff and he regrets not insisting they at least pull out the mattress to lay on the floor, but apparently Sylvain has unearthed the coffee maker and some kitchenwares (somehow without waking Felix, who has been a light sleeper in recent years, which makes it even more impressive), so everything doesn’t seem quite so awful.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Sylvain says when he notices that he’s awake, pouring him a cup before coming over to join him on the floor again.

“Morning,” he mumbles, sitting up and stretching before he takes the mug from him and takes a sip. “Thanks.”

“No problem. I thought we could both probably use it today. Ikea instructions are nonsense,” he says. “Plus, starting to unpack is just generally the worst part of moving anywhere.”

“I’d have thought that packing would be worse.”

Sylvain shakes his head, though he considers it for a moment. “I think packing is alright, it’s just all about making sacrifices, and trying to be realistic with yourself about what you need,” he says. “But then unpacking is about finding places for everything, and also realizing that you were wrong as hell about what you thought you needed. Then there’s the trips to the store because you realized a hundred different things you missed.”

“Sounds like someone’s speaking from experience,” he comments.

“Maybe a little,” he says with a laugh, shaking his head. “Anyway, it’s really not that bad. But there’s always stuff that pops up. I’ll try and help you with whatever I can. Don’t let me leave without getting your TV up and running. That was the big one in my last move.”

“I’m pretty sure that I could figure it out on my own,” he says.

Sylvain shrugs, and looks at him with a raised brow. “I mean, sure, you _could_. And I’ll leave you to it if you want. But why would you want that?”

“I guess I don’t,” he says, cupping his coffee cup in two hands as he brings it to his lips again.

“That’s what I thought.” A moment later, he jumps to his feet, with too much energy for someone who couldn’t possibly have gotten much better of a night of sleep than Felix had. “By the way, I got something for you.”

“You… got something for me?”

“Yeah. Like a housewarming gift,” he says. After a brief pause, he goes on, “Did you know that there are, like… traditional meanings for certain housewarming gifts? I thought that people just gave each other things because they’d look nice or they’d be useful.”

“If they’re being practical about it, that’s what they would do,” Felix says with a small shrug. He thinks of how flowers are apparently supposed to have specific meanings - it’s too much to keep track of.

“Well, as you know, I am never practical,” he responds with a laugh. “I mean, not so impractical as to give you a pineapple. Apparently that’s one of the gifts? According to one site, anyway.”

Now Felix is picturing him doing research on what to give as a housewarming gift, and the image is as baffling as it is endearing. “Good call,” he says. “I wouldn’t have eaten it.”

“I know. But, and I’ll admit that this is a totally typical housewarming gift, I _did_ get you a plant,” he says. He moves into the kitchen again and returns a moment later with a small planter containing a cactus. “But I also decided that most plants wouldn’t be the best option to give you, all things considered, so… Cactuses basically never need watering.”

Honestly speaking, he’s still surprised that Sylvain had had the thought to get him a gift at all. It definitely isn’t necessary, after all, but he appreciates it nonetheless. “Well, I’ll do my best not to kill it, then,” he says.

“I’m sure it’ll appreciate it,” he says. Looking down at the plant in his hands, he goes on, “I know this probably sounds dumb, but… When I first went off to school, I felt… pretty lonely, for a while? And I don’t know, obviously I’m sure you’ll make a ton of friends - or, like, two, and that’ll be plenty, knowing you - and I’ll be around a lot, but still. I hope that this little cactus buddy can be a reminder that you’re not alone.” Sylvain cringes at his own words as soon as they’re out, and while it is admittedly cheesy, there’s earnest care behind the gesture.

“Sylvain?” he cuts in before he can say anything else. “Thank you.”

Together they find a spot for the cactus on the windowsill in Felix’s bedroom, and it feels a little ridiculous to have it there when there’s no furniture in the room, but he’s come to accept that ‘Sylvain’ and ‘ridiculous’ go hand in hand much of the time.

In spite of himself, and perhaps mostly thanks to the low-maintenance nature of the plant, it remains Felix’s constant companion for the entirety of his college career.

\---

**nineteen.**

Just after the end of Felix’s freshman year of college, Sylvain turns twenty-one.

Ordinarily, Felix doesn’t party. He was invited to some over the course of the school year, and he did end up getting dragged along to one, but overall the experience was sweaty and claustrophobic. But Sylvain is another matter entirely, and he understands that and respects that.

It does also mean, however, that Felix has to step out of his comfort zone to help him celebrate. They’ve both decided to stay in town rather than going home for the summer, which means that things are quieter without the students around, but still with enough going on that the downtown streets are littered with young adults when the sun goes down. Ingrid has come into town for the occasion, even, which is all the more cause for celebration.

Even though Sylvain has definitely had a drink or two in the past, there is something different about being able to order a drink from a bar legally. All of it feels a little bit ridiculous to Felix, but he understands the tradition of it, and of course he's not going to skip out on Sylvain's birthday.

Because the bars transition over to only allowing patrons of legal drinking age at nine, Felix and Ingrid are meant to join him for dinner, Sharpie X’s marking their hands, with some of his other friends until they’re kicked out.

It’s nice, really, being able to spend time with two of his oldest friends in the world, and even though Felix, generally speaking, doesn’t warm up to people easily, he’s enjoying himself pretty well.

Sylvain had wanted Felix to sit next to him (possibly just to annoy him and sneak bites of his food) and now he’s got an arm around his shoulder, far too casual as he tells a story. Felix has shoved his arm off of him and moved away only to be pulled back in too many times now, and though there’s a scowl on his face, he’s stopped resisting it.

(And maybe he kind of likes it, for reasons that haven’t yet become too much for him to deny.)

After he takes another sip of his drink, Sylvain seems to remember that he’s holding Felix hostage once more, and he turns his attention back to him. “You know, if you just want to take a little sip, I won’t tell anybody,” he tells him, bringing the glass in his hand closer to his face.

“Not interested,” he responds, rolling his eyes. 

Sylvain laughs and shakes his head, tugging him a little bit closer. “Aw, c’mon, I know you love crimes.”

“This is just barely a crime,” he says. “Not a particularly fun one.”

“Drinking is fun,” he points out. His breath smells like sugar and alcohol.

Felix shrugs. “I’m sure you’re having a lot of fun,” he says. “So you should keep doing that.”

“Well, you’re right. Guess I have no choice but to drink it all myself,” he says, and before Felix has a chance to say anything in the affirmative, he tips the glass back and downs the rest of it in a long drag. It’s as impressive as it is horrifying.

“I’m going to order some more tots before the kitchen closes, if he’s going to be doing shit like this, he needs all the help he can get,” one of Sylvain’s roommates - Felix cannot for the life of him remember her name - says as she flags down their waitress.

“And a water,” Mercedes adds, her voice peaceful as ever while still being audible in the bar, against all odds. She’s a grad student, older than all of them, and she seems to have taken that to mean she has to look after all of them. Or, perhaps that’s just her personality; whatever it is, Felix is grateful at least that she has decided to stay out with Sylvain tonight and keep an eye on him.

(It isn’t like he’d want to spend the whole evening out with a drunk Sylvain, anyway, but he trusts other people to take care of Sylvain perhaps even less than he trusts Sylvain to take care of himself. Mercedes, at least, will stay sober and seems to have her head on at least mostly straight.)

Once nine o'clock hits, Felix and Ingrid head out and return to his apartment. Considering the circumstances, they don’t really expect to see Sylvain again until the morning, when they have tentative plans to meet for a greasy breakfast at a diner midway between the two towns.

“I doubt that he’s actually going to make it to breakfast,” Ingrid comments as she folds her legs under herself on Felix’s couch. Despite having just returned from dinner, she’s helped herself to some of the snacks he’s got in his kitchen. “Knowing him, he might even still be drunk by then.”

“Entirely possible,” he agrees, thinking back to the state that Sylvain was in when they last saw him. He knows that Sylvain has a pretty high tolerance - as would be expected, he thinks - but it’s his twenty-first birthday and everyone is jumping at the opportunity to buy him a drink and even though the night was still young, he’d been decidedly _not_ sober.

“I don’t know who decided to let him start with a Long Island, but that’s not going to be doing him any favors.”

Felix raises an eyebrow at her. “You’re acting as though anyone is capable of _stopping_ Sylvain when he’s set his mind on something,” he says. He knows all too well how stubborn Sylvain can be, in part because he knows he is just as ridiculously stubborn.

“I’m well aware that that’s a herculean feat,” Ingrid admits after a moment, shaking her head. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t do anything that someone else will have to clean up for him after.”

“Even if he does,” he comments, leaning forward to grab the TV remote to pull up Netflix, “then it isn’t going to be your problem to deal with.”

She sighs, but nods. “Old habits,” she says. “It’s actually kind of strange, not being there and having to deal with the brunt of his mistakes.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not missing much,” he says. “Nothing good, anyway.”

Ingrid leans on the arm of the couch, watching him for a moment. “You guys do see each other often, right? I know you both said you would, but…”

“We do,” he confirms.

“And it’s good?” she asks. It feels like there’s something that she isn’t saying, but Felix isn’t in the mood to play whatever guessing games she’s thinking about right now.

“It’s good,” he confirms. “Now, did you want to watch a movie or not?”

She lets whatever it is that she was thinking about go, and instead turns her focus to picking out a movie to watch with him. He shoots down several of the movies that she suggests, but in the end they settle on an action movie that is moderately palatable to both of them.

After the credits roll, they’re starting to debate whether to call it a night or find something else to watch when Felix’s phone rings. He’s about to just decline the call when he sees that it’s Mercedes calling, and begrudgingly he answers. “Hello?”

“Hello Felix,” comes the voice from the other end of the line. “I hate to bother you, but I’ve lost track of Sylvain.” Even though her words are at least a little bit alarming, her voice is as calm as ever.

“You… lost track of Sylvain?” he repeats. He’s already gotten up and grabbed his shoes, slipping them onto his feet. “How does that happen?”

“I needed to use the restroom, and when I returned, he had apparently wandered off,” she explains. “Of course, I don’t want to disrupt your evening too much. I can probably take care of it on my own, but I thought you might want to know.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” he says. “If he’s got his keys on him, I’ll be able to find him easily enough. I’ll meet you downtown.”

Mercedes lets out a pleased hum, sounding as if she knew that this was exactly how this was going to end up. “Thank you, Felix,” she says. “If I see him before you show up, I’ll call you back to let you know.”

He says a quick goodbye before he hangs up the phone and stuffs it in his pocket, looking back towards where Ingrid is now looking at him, confusion and concern written on her features. “The idiot ran off,” he explains.

“He ran off,” Ingrid repeats, sounding like she knows she heard him correctly but still hopes against all hope that she didn’t.

“He ran off. So now we need to go pick him up.”

With a heavy sigh, she gets up as well, joining him in getting to his feet. “What was that you were saying earlier about me _not_ having to clean up Sylvain’s messes?”

Shrugging, Felix already started to move towards the door. “To be fair, you still don’t have to,” he said. “I could get an Uber. Or we could just leave him to his own devices. He’s a grown man, and he’s already got at least one person looking for him.”

In spite of his words, though, Felix doesn’t think that he’d be able to just stay here and go to bed in good conscience, and he suspects that Ingrid feels the same way, especially given how she’s already following after him.

“What makes you think that you’ll have any easier of a time tracking him down than she would?” she asks as they head down the steps to the parking lot. “Something about his keys?”

“He’s got one of those trackers on his keychain,” he says with a small shrug. “The ones to help you find your shit when you lose it. I can log into the app, and go from there.”

“You have his password?”

“He’s an idiot. He uses the same password for everything,” Felix explains, though he doesn’t admit that he isn’t much better when it comes to keeping his online accounts secure.

On the drive over, he is as successful as expected at getting into the account, and he’s able to see where Sylvain’s keys have recently been pinged. Once they reach the stretch of road in question, he has Ingrid pull over and he hops out of the car, looking up at the building as he pulls his phone out again to call Mercedes - she can get inside even when he can’t.

He hangs up after two rings, though, when he catches sight of a familiar head of red hair; there’s no mistaking Sylvain in a crowd. He’s in an alcove next to the bar, not quite visible from the street if you aren’t specifically looking for him, but not exactly hidden either. It almost takes the triumph out of it, finding out how easy it was to find him, but it’s still something of a relief all the same (not that he is ever going to tell Sylvain that he was at all worried about him; no, all he needs to know is that it’s pure annoyance at having to leave his apartment again).

Felix starts to head towards him, a comment about having to get a leash for him already on the tip of his tongue when he realizes that Sylvain isn’t alone. He’s kissing someone. That, by itself, isn’t unusual, and he wouldn’t have any second thoughts about interrupting him making out, except - it’s not a girl.

The body Sylvain has crowded up against the brick wall is decidedly male. It’s even someone that Felix recognizes from around campus, though he can’t put a name to the face, especially not when that face is obscured by the way Sylvain is practically devouring it.

For a moment, all Felix can do is stare. He knows, of course, that Sylvain is an unrepentant flirt. He knows that his philosophy is that he will hit on practically anything that moves, but his flirting with anyone other than women seemed to always just be for laughs. Sylvain has dated exclusively women, to the best of Felix’s knowledge. The only involvement Sylvain has had with someone of the same gender that he knows of was kissing Felix himself, years ago, and that was purely youthful experimentation. And yet, here he is, kissing someone who is most certainly male, and doesn’t seem bothered at all by the fact that he isn’t female. Sylvain’s hand is on the man’s ass, and for just a second, Felix feels like the world has suddenly shifted on its axis.

But eventually he collects himself enough to snap out of it and move forward, grabbing Sylvain’s shoulder - he’d interrupt if this was a girl, and Felix isn’t about to make an exception because of apparently-bisexual revelations.

For a second, Sylvain looks mad, like he’s ready to curse out whoever is interrupting, but the expression on his face melts away when he realizes who he’s looking at. “Hey, Fe,” he says, now pulling away from the other guy of his own volition and standing up properly. He sways for a second but then rights himself. “What are you doing here?”

“Mercedes said you ran off on her,” he says.

Sylvain laughs, shaking his head. “That makes it sound way too dramatic,” he says. “I got distracted. Found something fun to do.”

“Something fun,” he repeats, and there’s a roaring in his ears.

“Yeah, something fun.” And with that, he seems to remember what he had just been doing, and turns back to the man that he had just been kissing. “Thanks for that. I’m sure we’ll see each other again,” he tells him, giving him a wink and a pat on the hip that’s meant as a dismissal.

(It’s remarkably similar to how he’s seen Sylvain interact with the various women he’s been with, so casual about his little white lies of promises he’ll never keep.)

It takes a moment, the guy looking between them with a bit of confusion before he appropriately takes the hint and leaves, but once they’re alone again, Felix gives him a hard look. “Look, you’re allowed to do whatever you want, you know I don’t give a shit, but you could’ve at least told Mercedes where you were going.”

“Aw, were you worried about me, Felix?” he asks, and Felix kind of wants to smack him.

“No,” he says flatly.

“It’s okay, you can admit it,” he coos, leaning in towards him and subsequently losing his balance. Felix has to put his hands up to help keep him steady.

Shaking his head, Felix helps him to stand up properly on his own again. “You’re impossible, and you’re a wreck,” he says.

“It’s my birthday, and you’re being mean to me,” he says.

“And you’re drunk as hell and probably not even going to remember having this conversation with me.”

Sylvain huffs at him, shaking his head. His voice is almost uncomfortably serious as he says, “That’s not true. I remember everything when it comes to you.”

Because Felix doesn’t have the time or energy to pull apart what that might mean, he pulls his phone back out of his pocket. “How about you meet back up with Mercedes?” he says. “And maybe you consider letting her take you home.”

“Ooh, now that’s an idea. She’s a cutie,” he responds, a wink punctuating the words, and honestly Felix should get a prize for not just decking Sylvain. But it _is_ his birthday, after all, no matter how insufferable he might be. “But the night is still young.”

“I’m going to call Mercedes, and what happens from there is her problem.” He ignores the way that Sylvain starts to invade his space again as he makes a quick call to let Mercedes know where she can come to collect him again, and when he hangs up Sylvain is practically leaning fully against him. Raising an eyebrow, he asks, “Yes?”

“Just looking at you,” Sylvain says, humming.

“Looking. With your entire body,” he says.

Laughing, he shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so,” he says. “Thanks for coming to find me.”

“You don’t mind that you lost your conquest?” Felix has no idea why he’s bringing it up of his own accord, but throughout his life he’ll find that when Sylvain is involved, logic isn’t always a factor in his actions.

“Oh, that guy? Eh, I think I could’ve done better,” he says dismissively. “Besides, you were a sight for sore eyes.”

“Your lines don’t work on me.”

“I don’t know about that,” he says, shaking his head at him. “I think I’m the only one who has ever broken through your walls, am I right? So I like to think I could win you over.”

Felix just rolls his eyes. “You’re talking nonsense.”

“Maybe,” he says, seemingly perfectly willing to own it. “But I think I’m still right.” With that, he leans in further, cupping either side of Felix’s head in his hands as he presses a kiss to Felix’s forehead.

(Those same lips were just against some random guy’s. The world has turned upside down.)

At the same time that Sylvain is pulling back, Mercedes comes around the corner. “Sylvain!” she says, moving over to them and laying a hand on his arm. “There you are. Thank you, Felix.”

Felix, who can still feel the ghost of Sylvain’s lips against his skin, is more than happy to hand him off at this point and let whatever comes next happen. “Yeah, whatever,” he says. “Just don’t lose him again.”

“I won’t. I let my guard down before, but I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve,” she tells him with a little giggle, shaking her head.

“Tell me about these tricks, Mercedes,” Sylvain encourages her.

“If I told you, then they’d no longer be quite so effective,” she says. “Now, come on, let’s say goodnight to Felix and let him go. It’s late, and we already called him and Ingrid out here.”

“Goodnight, Felix,” he said, his voice singsong. “Sweet dreams.”

“Night, Sylvain,” he says in return, stepping back and moving back towards the street.

It takes him a few minutes to get a hold of Ingrid to figure out where she is and for her to loop back around to pick him up, and with every moment that passes, he feels more and more exhausted.

When Ingrid pulls up to the curb, he gets in and immediately flops back against the seat. “Thanks,” he says.

“No problem. I’m impressed you got him that quickly,” she tells him.

Felix shrugs, glancing back at her. “It’s not like it was difficult,” he says. “He was right where the app said he would be. Though I guess I should be grateful he didn’t lose his keys somewhere over the course of the night.”

“We should all be grateful for that,” she says.

He makes a small sound in the affirmative but says nothing else, leaning his head against the doorframe and looking out the window as they go.

Ingrid doesn’t try to make further conversation - distance apparently has not made her lose her keen sense of his moods and how to treat him accordingly - and just turns the radio up for the short drive back to his apartment.

Once they get back, he helps her get the pull-out couch ready to sleep on, and while they work in relative harmony, his mind is uncomfortably loud. He considers telling her about it, but the fact of the matter is that he _knows_ it isn’t a big deal. He doesn’t _care_ what Sylvain’s sexuality is, and he knows Ingrid doesn’t either. They’re not homophobic, and as long as the other party is willing, Sylvain can kiss whoever the hell he wants to. Hell, maybe he normally wouldn’t consider himself bi, but alcohol had lowered his inhibitions - though somehow, that’s the most troublesome thought yet.

So when Ingrid climbs into bed and says goodnight, he turns off the light and heads down the hall to get into his own bed and try to sleep like he’s been wanting to. Maybe with a full night’s rest, all of this will feel a bit more normal and less earth-shattering.

Instead, he’s kept up by thoughts of Sylvain kissing another man, and the way his lips were soft and a little bit wet against his forehead, plagued by the fact that it means anything to him when it absolutely shouldn’t. He has no ownership over Sylvain, and in any case it isn’t as though he would want to be kissing Sylvain himself.

He gets stuck in this cycle, and every time he wears himself out, his mind pulls itself back to wakefulness with a refresher of the cold shock that had run through him at the sight of Sylvain in that alley. It’s his own hell.

\---

**thirteen.**

Sylvain was Felix’s first kiss, but it’s not a big deal.

When it happens, he’s really only just getting to be at the age where he is even considering that sort of thing. He knows that he’s a little bit late to the game - Ingrid has a definite thing for Glenn and Dimitri, for his part, has plenty of girls interested in him - but he doesn’t have it in him to care about that.

Part of the problem is that he knows he’s different. Different in part for his lack of interest in sex, sure, but also in what it is that he wants. After all, for all that Dimitri blushes and is extremely awkward about it, it’s still evident that he’s interested in the girls that approach him, and Sylvain has made it abundantly clear by now what he’s after. But Felix… He can’t see girls that way. Hell, he can barely see guys that way, either, but that’s neither here nor there. He’s sure, to some extent, he’ll mature into it.

Still, it’s the kind of thing that Sylvain cares about, for whatever reason.

They’re hanging out in Felix’s bedroom. Sylvain spends as much time as he can over at the Fraldarius household instead of his own, and nobody mentions anything about it. Rodrigue doesn’t bat a lash when he has to add an extra person to his dinner arrangements anymore.

It’s also not unusual for them to be where they are now: sitting together on his bed, leaned close to each other as they watch whatever’s on the television. Ordinarily Felix isn’t the biggest fan of physical contact, but he’ll allow it from Sylvain.

When the show they’re watching goes away for a commercial break, Sylvain pushes himself up onto his elbow to look at Felix, a little smirk on his lips. It immediately makes him feel nervous.

“Can I help you?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” he says. “Or, maybe more accurately, I can help you.”

“With what?”

Sylvain hums as he looks at him. “So, I’ve been thinking. And I’m surprised that you haven’t started dating yet,” he says. “I haven’t even heard you talk about any crushes or anything.”

“I haven’t really had any crushes,” he says.

“There’s no way that’s true,” he protests. “Everyone has crushes.”

Felix hasn’t, genuinely. He’s been practicing fencing after school with Glenn, and that’s actually taking up a lot of his time. He doesn’t _want_ to date; not to mention he finds the entire concept of dating before you can drive yourself unbearable. He’s not about to ask his father to drop him off for a date. But even if he did, he doesn’t want to talk about it with Sylvain. “I don’t.”

“Not even a little one?” he asks. “No way. There’s somebody you just don’t want to tell me about.” He gasps, looking at Felix for a second like he’s finally pieced a puzzle together. “Is it Ingrid?”

He blinks, surprised by the very notion that he could have those sort of feelings for Ingrid of all people; she’s fine, he supposes, but he can’t imagine being interested in her romantically. “No. No, it’s not Ingrid, it’s nothing like that,” he says.

“Okay, but there _is_ something that you haven’t told me,” Sylvain says, and Felix kind of hates that he’s able to pick up on the slightest misspeak.

“No,” he says. After a second, he adds, “No one in specific, anyway.”

Frowning for a second, Sylvain considers his words. “So… Is it, like, a type, then?”

“No,” he says again, sitting up so as to put a little bit of distance between him and Sylvain. “Not everyone is like you.”

“Okay, no, I know you’re not,” he says, reaching out to take hold of his wrist so that he can’t get away that easily. “I just, you know, was curious.”

“There’s nothing to be curious about.”

“Got it. But just know that, you know, you can talk to me about it, if that changes,” he says. “Girls are complicated, and I can try and help.”

While Felix isn’t really sure that he would want help from him, given what he’s seen, it’s probably meant as a nice gesture. And then, in spite of himself, he finds himself mumbling, “It’s not girls.”

“What?”

“I’m really not worried about attracting girls,” he says.

“Yeah, you’ve established - ”

It’s more than a little frustrating. Before Sylvain can finish, Felix carries on, “Let me _finish_ , Sylvain. It’s… It’s boys. I think.”

That does make him go silent for a moment, which is kind of astounding given how Sylvain always has something to say, always has an answer for everything. “You’re gay?” he asks eventually.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” he responds, shrugging. “It’s not like I’m _that_ interested in anyone.”

“Can I help?” he asks.

Felix blinks, looking at him with a small frown. “How could you possibly help?”

“You could kiss me,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious solution. “You could see if you like it.”

“That’s dumb,” he says.

“Maybe,” he admits with a shrug. “But it won’t do any harm, right?”

Felix pauses. He has no idea why he’s even considering agreeing to this. Honestly, he shouldn’t. It’s ridiculous, and kissing him isn’t going to make it any clearer. But he’s nodding and giving him the go-ahead, and Sylvain gives him a smile and says, “You won’t regret it” before leaning in.

Sylvain’s lips are soft against his own, but confident. They’re certain in a way that Felix doesn’t feel himself, his heart suddenly starting to thunder away in his chest. He feels ridiculous for it - it’s Sylvain, it’s just Sylvain - but he can’t help it.

Part of him had expected it to be just a quick peck on the lips, but Sylvain isn’t pulling back. Felix is doing his best to follow his lead, out of his depth as he is, though he’s also starting to think that he’s thinking too much about it. There’s a hand on his cheek, and he wants to use it to ground himself. But he’s never been one to settle for being _okay_ at something, and this seems like as good an opportunity as any to start to learn.

Sylvain seems to pick up on it and he pulls back, looking at him with a small smile and letting his thumb rub along his cheekbones. “Here’s the most important lesson in kissing, alright?” he says. “There’s no one right or wrong way.”

That strikes Felix as being false, but he can’t say that with any real certainty. “And you consider yourself the authority?”

“Of course,” he says with a laugh, grinning at him. “I’ve already got girls begging to kiss me.”

Something uncomfortable settles itself in his stomach at the thought of that, but he pushes the thought away. His cheeks are warm and he’s sure he’s blushing, so he leans in and presses his forehead into Sylvain’s chest like they’re kids again.

“But, that’s not the point here,” Sylvain carries on, tapping his upper arm. “What’d you think?”

Pulling back again, he shrugs. “I - ” he starts, but after a couple of seconds his mouth closes again because he doesn’t really know what he thought of it. It was fine, maybe, but he hadn’t really thought too much about the kiss itself; or maybe more accurately, he thought too much about it.

Before he can form any more words, Sylvain is kissing him again. It’s brief, but it’s pleasant and warm and he kind of misses it when he pulls away. “What about that time?” he asks.

“I mean, I don’t have anything to compare it to,” Felix points out with a small shrug.

“Sure,” he allows. “But did you enjoy it?”

Tempted as he is to lie, and hopefully do Sylvain’s ego a favor in the long run, he still nods. “I did,” he says. “I guess. I still don’t really get the appeal of kissing, but that was… fine.”

“Perfect,” Sylvain says, looking triumphant, and the smirk on his lips is a little obnoxious.

“Whatever. Just don’t tell anyone about this,” he says.

“I swear to the goddess I won’t,” he assures him. “It’ll be like it never happened.”

And, to be fair, he keeps his word and doesn’t tell anybody about it. He never even mentions it to Felix again.

\---

**twenty-five.**

Truth be told, Felix hadn’t really expected Sylvain to be gone for as long as he has.

It isn’t like he didn’t warn him that he would be gone a while, and for all his faults, it can’t be claimed that Sylvain doesn’t keep his word, but… Well, maybe Felix is reaching a point now where he can be honest with himself and admit that he simply didn’t _want_ to have to go this long without seeing Sylvain. He’d grown, maybe, reliant on having him around all the time.

And he hates that. He’s stronger than that. He knows that it isn’t terribly healthy, even if he is getting on well enough without Sylvain there - even if things look perfectly fine on the surface level and he appears to be coping just fine, he knows that he's spending too much time thinking about someone who is so far away.

Felix is a man of action. Matters of the heart are a little bit out of his realm of expertise, but nonetheless he feels compelled to at least do _something_. He can move himself forward - he doesn’t know when Sylvain will be back as a more frequent presence in his life (if ever, though he trusted him at his word when he said he’d return), so there’s no point in waiting for him. He’s probably fallen in love with countless people in his travels. Besides, he has exactly one shred of evidence that Sylvain is interested in men, much less Felix specifically, so there's not even a point in agonizing over it.

A distraction might work. There’s a barista at the coffee shop on his way to work who has flirted with him on occasion; he even wrote his number on Felix's receipt once, though he'd thrown it away without a second thought.

He's nervous as he walks into the cafe, just the same as he would any other morning when he needs an extra boost for his day, and he tells himself that it's more like excitement than dread.

That same barista is here, and he looks up when Felix comes in and he offers him a smile. His name tag catches the light: _Nick_ , it says. "Welcome back," he greets him brightly. "Your usual?"

By the time Felix nods, Nick's already gotten the order punched into the register; he's nothing if not consistent. After handing over his card to pay, he clears his throat. "I also…" he starts and then stops, questioning once again if this is something that he even wants to do. But he's never been a quitter. "I was wondering if I could get your number again."

Caught off-guard, the barista nearly drops his card, fumbling it for a moment, but lets out a cheerful laugh. "Huh. Here I thought maybe I was barking up the wrong tree," he says.

Felix shrugs, not quite sure what to say in response, and maybe that fact that he feels so lukewarm about this and already out of his element should be a sign. "Took me a while, but I came around," he says.

"I'm glad you did," he says. "I'd like to get to know you a little bit."

His number is delivered in the form of Sharpie scribblings on the side of the cup, paired with a little doodle of a flower.

For the next couple of days, Felix texts on and off with Nick, and eventually they agree to meet up on Friday evening for a date. _Anything but coffee!_ Nick had written.

The date is.. Pleasant.

That’s really the best way of putting it. It isn’t anything special, but Felix isn’t foolish enough to expect it to be; it’s a first date. Nick is polite and makes nice conversation, and he offers to pick up the tab at the end of the date even though he’d mentioned being a broke college student.

(Even though he knows there’s only a few years between them, hearing that Nick is in his last semester of school makes him feel incredibly old.)

At the end of the night, Nick walks Felix home, and he lets him kiss him as they stand on the front steps outside of his apartment.

Once he’s gone, Felix stands in front of his apartment door for a moment. “God fucking dammit,” he mumbles to himself, letting his forehead come to rest against his front door, because all he can think about now is the over-a-decade-old memory of Sylvain’s lips.

Still, a week and a half later, they have a second date. Nick takes him out for a hike, because it’s something that Felix mentioned liking during their first date. It’s very thoughtful, but also equal amounts foolish, as it turns out, because Nick… is not built for hiking.

Nick hasn’t actually made it halfway up, and he’s already looking like he’s about to keel over. “I am so sorry,” he tells him as he sits down on a rock, fishing in his backpack for his water bottle.

“It’s fine,” Felix says, arms crossed over his chest as he watches him.

“I bit off a bit more than I could chew,” he carries on, and he’s clearly embarrassed but keeping a good humor about it, and honestly Felix can recognize that it might have been endearing if he was a different person than he was.

“I said it’s fine,” he says.

Nick looks up at him, shaking his head. “It’s nice of you to say that, but I know it’s not,” he says with a laugh. “I guess I just wanted to impress you.”

Raising an eyebrow, he looked down at him. He isn’t sure what part of going for an intermediate hike and colossally failing was supposed to be impressive.

“I know, I know,” he says, shrugging. “I thought I was in better shape than I am.”

“We could have just gone to see a movie or something.”

“You don’t seem like a dinner and a movie kind of guy,” he points out, and that might be true. He’s more of an active person, after all, but that isn’t to say that he _can’t_ enjoy something like that.

Once Nick has caught his breath, they head back down so that they can leave - he offers to keep going, but Felix points out that it’ll only get worse for him the longer he goes on, and “I’m capable of carrying you down, but I’d rather not have to” - and Felix’s mind wanders off on him again.

When they were in high school, he, Sylvain, Ingrid, and Dimitri went camping. The hike out to their campsite had involved a lot of Ingrid shouting at Sylvain to stop goofing around, but he’d made it there nonetheless without any real fuss. He barely holds in the frustrated groan that comes with the memory resurfacing.

When they get back to Nick’s car, they sit in what is probably not the most comfortable silence. Felix has never been that great with people and their emotions, and so he suspects that trying to comfort him or tell him that this date wasn’t a total disaster will only come across as sarcastic at best. And he’s distracted, his mind not even on this aborted date.

He wonders, for a bit, if this is just how things are going to be for him forever. If he’s just going to be stuck comparing anyone he tries to date to Sylvain, he isn’t sure that there’s any point in dating anyone.

When the car comes to a stop in the parking lot of Felix’s building, they both look at each other. Felix can see on Nick’s face that he can see the end of this (he doesn’t even know what to call it; two dates doesn’t constitute a relationship. At this point he’s pretty sure it would still be at least relatively acceptable for him to just ghost him), but he knows it’s not for the reason he thinks.

“I don’t think we should see each other again,” Felix says, because there’s no point in beating around the bush when they clearly both know that it’s about to happen.

“I thought you were going to say that,” he says with a sigh, looking down for a moment. “Well, at least I can call this a learning experience.”

“Don’t,” he says.

Frowning, Nick looks at him, confusion clear in his features. “What?”

“I don’t care if you’re not a hiker, or if you’re terrible at planning a date,” he says. “The problem is that there’s someone I’m waiting on, and you’re not him.”

There’s a brief pause. “Oh.”

“So… That’s that,” he says, reaching for the handle to open the car door. He doesn’t feel the need to stick around and have a conversation with him about this. “See you at the cafe.”

Nick blinks a couple of times as he looks out the window at him, then nods. “Yeah,” he says. “See you.”

It could’ve been the beginning of a love story for someone else, but not for Felix.

\---

That evening, he ends up looking at the notebook he had started a couple of years ago. It feels overly sentimental, but it stands out to him how he had written so freely to Sylvain, even though he had known that he’d never actually send any of it to him. For the most part, still, none of it was anything that he’d feel ashamed to show him, or anything like that.

He doesn’t know what compels him to do it, but he opens up WhatsApp and sends off a message to Sylvain reading simply: _I went on a couple of dates._

Surprisingly, the reply comes almost immediately: _WHAT!!_

That message is quickly followed up by an incoming call. Felix stares at his phone screen for a moment before answering it. “It’s really not a big deal,” he says in lieu of a greeting.

“Okay, but it is,” Sylvain says. “Also, hi, Felix.”

“It’s only a big deal if you make it a big deal,” he says, but in spite of the minor irritation in his tone, he’s already feeling lighter just for having had the chance to talk to Sylvain. “And I would rather not make it a big deal.”

“Okay, okay, but you get why it feels like a big deal, right? You have basically never dated. So, you should tell me about it,” he says. “Like, who’s the guy?”

“Unimportant,” he responds. “I’m not going to go out with him again.”

There’s the staticky sound of Sylvain sighing on the other end of the line. “Why not?”

“We’re just not compatible,” he says, because that’s easier than saying _Because I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you and you won’t get the fuck out of my head._

“Okay, I guess that makes some sense,” he relents, “though I also feel like there’s no harm in having a little bit of fun with somebody. It’s not like you have to marry them.”

Felix hums, the sound noncommittal, because admittedly that had kind of been the goal. He’d never intended to really get serious with Nick, even if things had worked out between them. And maybe he hadn’t given it enough of a chance before giving up, but he also… hadn’t really wanted to. “Tell me about what you’ve been up to.”

For a second, the line is silent, and he thinks that maybe they got disconnected. But then Sylvain says, “Or, maybe, you could come and see me. We could catch up in person.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Ah, as mean to me as ever, I see,” he says with a laugh, and Felix can just picture the look on his face. “But c’mon, there’s nothing to fix a broken heart like a vacation.”

“I don’t have a broken heart,” he scoffs. “It was a couple of dates. That’s it. I barely know him.”

Sylvain shushes him. “Fine, do you really need an excuse for a vacation? Or to see your bestest friend?”

“Bestest isn’t a word,” he says. “I… Where are you, anyway?”

“Right now, I’m in Derdriu,” he says. “It’s beautiful here.”

It’s not surprising, actually, that Sylvain is in Derdriu; he’d mentioned wanting to go in the past, and he had actually been expecting to see a postcard from there long before now. “I don’t know where my passport is.” He doesn’t know why he says it; it makes it sound like he’s far more sure about doing this than he actually is.

“You’ll find it,” he responds, and he sounds pretty assured now that this is going to happen.

“Maybe,” he says.

“I’ll even pay for your plane tickets,” he offers. “And you can stay with me.”

Felix can’t help but laugh. “You’re sounding a little bit needy there.”

“What can I say? I’ve missed you,” he says. “It would feel good to have you come hang around for a bit.”

It’s not that simple, after all, because he has to figure out a time that he’d be able to get away from work for long enough to make it worth flying out. He’s acquired more plants over the years, so he’ll need someone to come water them. He hates going to the airport, just in general.

But acting like any of those are reasons not to do it (no matter how much he doesn’t want someone in his apartment when it isn’t there) would be ridiculous, especially when the fact that Sylvain misses him makes him feel warm.

Which is how, by the end of the phone call, Sylvain has managed to talk him into setting dates (“You’ve basically never taken any time off, have you? Pick some days and tell your boss, the office will make do”) and he has his tickets booked for him. All the while, Felix has his phone tucked up between his shoulder and his ear as he looks through his desk drawers in search of his passport.

“See you soon, babe,” Sylvain says before they hang up, and Felix is going to fucking go feral.

\---

Felix spends the flight to Leicester feeling like he’s losing his mind. He hates traveling, hates confining himself into a big metal tube and having to give a stranger a lapdance because they’re not willing to get up for five seconds so he can get into the overhead bin. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this.

(Except that he does. It’s for Sylvain.)

But all of the doubt and annoyance with himself melts away when he heads down to baggage claim and finds himself face to face with a familiar face grinning at him.

In spite of himself, he finds his legs moving faster towards Sylvain, barely holding himself back from throwing himself at him. He immediately finds himself wrapped up in a hug, and for once in his life he actually lets himself hug him back and linger there for a moment. When he pulls back, he brings a hand up to gesture to where Sylvain’s jawline is now hiding behind a beard. “What the fuck is that?”

“Hello to you too, Felix,” he says with a laugh, his hand remaining on Felix’s hip for what might be a moment too long before dropping it. “It’s a beard. Thought I might try out something new. What do you think?”

Appraising him for a moment, he shrugs. “I guess you could do worse,” he says. “It covers more of your unsightly face.”

Laughing, Sylvain does his best to pout at him. “Good thing I know you’re being mean just for the sake of being mean. That probably actually means you like it.”

“It’s fine,” he says, because he’s not about to tell Sylvain he’d like to touch his beard.

“It’s okay, I know how you really feel,” he responds with a wink. They stand together as they watch suitcases starting to come around on the conveyor belt, and when Felix’s appears Sylvain grabs it for him before leading him outside to get a cab.

“So, I’ve got some dinner reservations and shit set up, and some ideas for your basic sightseeing stuff, but overall we’ve got a pretty open schedule,” Sylvain tells him as they settle in the back of the cab.

Felix nods, glancing out the window before turning his focus back to Sylvain; he doesn’t really care that much about doing typical tourist activities, but he’s decently confident that Sylvain won’t drag him out to do anything that he’ll absolutely hate. “That works,” he says.

“If you have anything in mind, we can add it to the list,” he says. “But honestly I’ve just kind of been… hanging, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” he says, because that’s definitely been the vibe that he’s gotten from the postcards and other messages that he’s gotten: Sylvain has been spending the past few years just fucking around (both figuratively and literally). He’s doing odd jobs here and there, but for the most part he’s just been out having what must be the time of his life. Before he can think any better of it, he asks, “Is there a reason you can’t hang in Fhirdiad?”

“Eh, I could, but I’m young and dumb,” he says, which isn’t exactly an answer, and Felix thinks they both know it.

Yet, Felix lets him get away with it for now. He’s not about to sour the mood this early on. “I can’t argue with that,” he says. “It’ll still be there when you get back.”

“That’s the idea,” he agrees.

The ride from the airport to the hotel Sylvain has been staying at is relatively short (“I do hear the planes from my room, but it doesn’t really bother me”), and it’s filled with him pointing out a few landmarks and also probably annoying the hell out of the cab driver, who takes it all in stride.

When they arrive, Sylvain pays the driver and hops out of the car to pull Felix’s suitcase from the trunk before he has the opportunity to protest. “I know I always want to shower after I fly, do you need to wash up?” he asks as they walk in.

“That’s probably not a bad idea,” he says with a nod.

When they get up to Sylvain’s room, he explains as he lets them in, “So, this is the same room I’ve been staying in, and obviously I only needed one bed for myself, but! There is a pullout couch. So I figured I could just use that while you’re here, and you can take the bed. And before you ask, I asked housekeeping to change the sheets today, so it’s all fresh for you.”

“Oh, good. You haven’t gotten any less stupid,” he comments. He lets his backpack fall from his shoulders and sets it down on the couch in question.

Sylvain huffs, looking back at him with a small frown. “Hey. I thought that it was a pretty good solution.”

“It’s not a bad solution, but it’s a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist,” he says. “That’s a king-size bed. We can share it.”

“Oh,” he says, his eyes falling to the bed for a moment before he nods. “Cool. I mean, I knew that that could be an option, but I didn’t want to assume.”

“We used to share a bed all the time,” Felix points out.

“Mostly when we were kids. I don’t know, I guess I thought your willingness to do that might change,” he says.

“No, it’s fine. Sleeper sofas are never that comfortable anyway, and there’s no reason for you to subject yourself to that,” he says. After a moment passes and it’s clear that there will be no further argument, he nods and heads for the bathroom. “I’ll be out in a little bit.”

It’s only once Felix is in the shower that it really occurs to him that he just argued his way into having to share a bed with Sylvain while he’s here. It’s not the end of the world, of course, especially being that it is true that they’ve shared a bed plenty of times before, but this is the first time since he’s fully come to the realization of what he feels for Sylvain. But it’ll be fine.

He makes quick work of showering and getting himself dressed after, finding Sylvain laid out on the bed once he comes out of the bathroom. The TV is on, and Felix sits down on the edge of the mattress and looks over at it. “What’re you watching?”

“Uh, some crappy made for TV movie,” he says. “Want to join me?”

“Sounds awful,” he says, but all the same he’s sitting down properly, adjusting the pillows before leaning up against them.

Before he knows it, he’s half-asleep, enough that when Sylvain slings an arm around him, he doesn’t even attempt to stop him. He lets himself lean into the feeling of sleep overcoming him, and he wants to blame jetlag aside from the fact that there’s only a one-hour time difference and it was a relatively short flight.

\---

A few days of exhausting (but, admittedly, enjoyable) sightseeing and participating in the sort of tacky tourist activity that neither of them would do on their own later, they’re having dinner on a patio overlooking the water when Felix decides he’s tired of ignoring the giant elephant in the room.

“When do you think you’re going to come back?”

For a second, Sylvain pauses, his fork hovering a few inches above his plate, like he doesn’t really want to acknowledge that the question has been asked. “I don’t know,” he answers eventually. “But I promise that I will.”

“I know you will,” he says. That genuinely is the truth; he has never been concerned about whether or not Sylvain will come back, though at times he’s almost wondered if he’s a fool for thinking that way when faced with absolutely zero evidence that it’s true. “I don’t understand why you’ve already been gone for nearly three fucking years.”

“I know,” he says. “I could try and explain why, but I don’t know if - ”

Felix blinks. “I don’t care. Whatever it is you’re about to say, I don’t care. I want to understand, because now I know there _is_ a why.”

Rubbing the back of his neck, he nods. “Alright, you’re clever,” he says. “But, fair warning, you’re probably also going to call me an idiot.”

“Well, that’s only fair,” he says. “Because you are an idiot, most of the time.”

“Alright, I earned that,” Sylvain admits, letting out a long breath. “The thing is, I don’t… You have to understand that I didn’t really know what I was doing.”

If he’s expecting Felix to be surprised, well, he’s going to have to try harder than that. “Go on.”

“When it started, I just felt like I needed to give myself some room to breathe,” he says, and for the first time Felix is actually starting to be a little bit worried about this. Before he can express his concerns, though, Sylvain is starting to talk again. “Or, maybe, give both of us that room. Unless I was reading too much into it.”

“Both of us?” he echoes, like maybe he’s misunderstanding and the ‘us’ in this scenario isn’t actually _them_.

“Yeah. I don’t know, it’s like…” he starts and then stops again, letting out a sound that’s a little bit frustrated. “It all makes sense in my head, but trying to put it in words makes it a lot more difficult.”

Felix grabs a piece of bread and takes a bite, chewing it slowly as he looks at Sylvain. “We’ve got plenty of time, and I’m all ears.”

Nodding slowly, Sylvain lets out a long breath; at least he knows well enough that Felix isn’t going to just let him off the hook. “I just kind of… Maybe this was super presumptuous of me, but it felt like there was a logical conclusion that we were just kind of marching our way towards,” he says.

“Logical conclusion?” he asks. He’s not about to make any assumptions about what it is that Sylvain is referring to, because that way he’ll only make a fool of himself.

“Again, probably just me being presumptuous,” he says. “But maybe a part of me has just spent the last several years thinking that maybe one day you and I would fall in love.”

And there it is again, Felix can hear the blood rushing in his veins and he’s only _mostly_ sure that he heard him right. “We… what?”

“Well, that’s probably not phrasing it properly,” he says, and now instead of looking at Felix, he’s staring out at the water. There are a couple of ducks. “Because I don’t know about you, but I already did.”

“Already... did?” Felix echoes slowly. He feels like he’s losing his mind here a bit, his mind slowing down like he’s wading through water and he needs Sylvain to clarify everything.

He lets out a little laugh, eyes still on the ducks, and there’s something that will never really feel natural about when Sylvain Gautier is nervous. “Yeah. I fell in love with you,” he says, glancing up at him for just a second before looking away again; it’s like he wants to see how Felix is reacting but also absolutely doesn’t want to see. “I actually thought you might already have some inkling of that.”

“I did not,” he says.

“Well, uh. Hey. There’s that,” he says. His cheeks are red; it’s almost cute.

There’s going to be plenty of time to think about that, and ask more questions, but Felix can only let himself get so distracted. He needs his first question answered before he can even start to think about anything else. “Okay, so… What does that have to do with anything?”

“I was worried about, like, what if we moved too fast into something?”

Felix wants to _scream_. “What?”

“There were so many times that I felt like maybe something was about to happen. And we’re both so young, you know? And so many people get into relationships when they’re young and - and we’ve both been through some shit.”

“You’re only making a marginal amount more sense as this goes on,” he says.

“I know, I know,” he says.

“You usually have a better way with words than this,” he adds when it doesn’t look like he’s going to say anything else.

“I know,” Sylvain repeats, shrugging. “I guess what I’m trying to get at is, I didn’t want to take the risk of our respective shit to, I don’t know, poison a potential relationship between us. I know I never trusted myself to hold up a relationship with _anyone_.”

For a moment, neither of them says anything, and Felix tries to wrap his head around what he has just been told. The most frustrating thing is that he almost understands where Sylvain is coming from; he has hang-ups. Sothis knows that Sylvain has them. “You could’ve trusted me.”

“I… Yeah. I did, I do. I always will,” he says. “But no matter how much I trust you, and know that I would be okay in your hands… I didn’t trust myself. I still don’t know if I do.”

“So that’s why you ran away,” he says.

“I don’t like to think of it as running away, but… I guess I have to admit that’s as good a way of putting it as any,” Sylvain says with a small shrug. He’s looking at Felix again, which feels like something of an improvement. “So… Yeah.”

“And… What? You just thought that that would fix things?”

“It could have. I mean, it gave us both time to mature,” he says, and as much as Felix doesn’t want to admit that he had any maturing that he needed to do, he… maybe did. “But then, once I was gone, I was able to… reflect on myself, a little bit?”

Frankly speaking, that can’t mean anything good. For all the people who Sylvain has wronged, no one hates him more than himself. “And what did you learn from that?”

“It dawned at me at some point that I don’t think that I really deserved you, even if you had wanted me,” he says. “And then I had to figure out… how to change that.”

The thing is, Felix loves him. He does. He has fully accepted that by now, but at this exact moment he is suddenly questioning how he could love someone so much who is such a colossal idiot. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he tells him. “I don’t - you think I _care_ whether you think you deserve me or not?”

“You should.”

“Well, I don’t. That’s my decision to make, and not yours,” he says. “And I - come on, Sylvain. No one _deserves_ anyone. We’re all awful but sometimes we choose each other anyway.”

A little laugh escapes Sylvain then. “Coming from you, that’s… almost romantic.”

“Not the point.”

“No, I know,” he says, sighing. “Sorry.”

Felix shakes his head, brushing off the apology. “Don’t deny yourself - and me - things we both want because you’ve got nonsense ideas about how to fix your problems. Sitting around on beaches and shit isn’t a substitute for therapy.”

It takes a moment for him to realize that it’s the closest he’s come to actually outright saying that he feels the same, because Sylvain is staring at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Something about it makes him want to bolt.

“I’m… glad we had this talk. Anyway,” he says, taking a sip of the wine. “You should finish eating, because that looks pretty good. I might steal some.”

“Oh, go for it.”

He thinks the conversation is well and truly over, and they actually soon manage to finish out the meal with much lighter conversations, until Sylvain speaks again, his voice surprisingly soft.

“So… You said that it was your decision, if I deserved you or not,” he says. “I’m not asking you to make that decision or anything, but… If you were to, where do you think you would land?”

“Good thing you’re not asking me to decide right now, because this is bullshit and I’m not prepared to deal with it. I need to wrap my head around this,” he says. “But you do.”

“I deserve you?”

“At some point. Not today.”

Once their bill is paid, Sylvain stuffs the rest of the bread into his pocket as they head out. They walk along the boardwalk as the sun goes down, and he rips off small pieces of bread to toss out onto the water for the ducks.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Felix tells him. “It’s bad for them, and they’ll get aggressive.”

“Yeah, well…” he says, and he shrugs as if that in any way completes his sentence. He drops himself to sit down on the ledge, his feet dangling down to the water below. As he prepares more bread, the ducks start moving towards him, eager.

Felix sits down beside him, and even though he knows that he shouldn’t, he takes some of the bread from Sylvain and tosses it out to the birds too.

In spite of how frustrating this whole situation is, Felix stays; he’s tempted to leave early so they can both unpack the situation, but he can’t make himself do it. He spends the rest of the week with Sylvain, as planned, and each night when they go to bed, he isn’t shy about curling up close against the redhead and wrapping his arms around him.

When the trip comes to an end, he leans up and kisses Sylvain before he goes through airport security. Neither of them knows what it means.

\---

**twenty-two.**

The last time he can remember sharing a bed with Sylvain had been the week of his college graduation.

Felix’s entire college career feels as though it has passed by in a flash. Things have been good. Come graduation, he has a job lined up that will bring him back to Fhirdiad. Once upon a time, that would have felt stifling, and he would have wanted to get as far away as possible, but by now he finds he’s kind of looking forward to it. He still doesn’t intend to see much of his father, but he’ll be able to keep an eye on Dimitri, and Ingrid will be in the area too. It will be good.

Of course, he has to get through graduation, first. That almost feels like more of an ordeal than taking his finals and finishing up the rest of his school work to be deemed eligible to walk.

Rodrigue has come into town, which isn’t surprising, but it is still uncomfortable. They have nothing to talk about, even if Felix were to want to talk to him. There is at least the fact that he’s staying at a hotel so there’s plenty of time away from him, but there’s still an obligation to see him.

The saving grace in all of this is (almost pathetically predictably) Sylvain. He’s come back into town and he’s staying with Felix, which means that between him and Ashe’s guests, the apartment is way too full of people, but it’s still nice.

The graduation ceremony itself is long and hot and it's held in the basketball stadium - it's probably many of his classmates' first time being in there - which never got updated to be air conditioned. With all the graduates packed in like sardines, it's unbearably hot and sweaty.

But periodically he can look up into the stands where he's spotted Sylvain sitting next to Rodrigue and receive a thumbs up, which shouldn't make a difference but almost does.

It's also a worthwhile distraction from the line of sweat running down his spine - he can ponder what the hell the two of them are talking about up there. While Sylvain gets along better with him than Felix does - Sylvain can get along with just about anyone if he tries to and doesn't just make an asshole of himself - they still don't have much common ground aside from Felix himself. Which, to be fair, might be exactly what's happening - taking advantage of the opportunity to needle Sylvain about what Felix has been up to for the past few years since he'd left home.

When his name is read and he crosses the stage, he can't help but look up again towards them, and is rewarded with the sight of Sylvain up on his feet, hooting and hollering, though from this distance he can't really hear it distinctly.

Out on the lawn after the ceremony wraps up, he is reunited with his father and Sylvain, and he's almost immediately pulled into a hug by Rodrigue. It feels incredibly uncomfortable, and he suspects that he looks it based on the way that Sylvain looks at him.

"Congratulations. If only your brother could be here today," Rodrigue says as he squeezes his shoulders. "He'd be proud of the man you've become."

By now, Felix knows that he should know better than to let it bother him. But he can't believe that those would be the first words out of his mouth in this situation; they don't talk about Glenn, ever. He thought that they'd both learned that well enough by now. And besides that, why can't he just say he's proud of him himself? It's grating. "Would he?" he says, hands coming up to push back so that he can get out of the embrace. 

The look on Rodrigue's face is awkward, and Felix would be lying if he said that he didn't get a sense of satisfaction from it.

Saving Rodrigue from having to figure out a way to fix the misstep, Sylvain swoops in and grabs Felix. He uses the height that he has on him to lift him up, spinning him around.

"Sylvain, put me down," he protests, doing his best to try to kick him in spite of the risk that he'd end up being dropped. His cap has already fallen off his head and tumbled to the ground.

"No can do," he responds, stopping in his spinning and instead pulling him into a tight hug, making sure his feet still aren't touching the ground. "You're all grown up now. I can hardly believe it."

"You're insufferable," he grumbles, but a part of him is amused and maybe a little bit touched nonetheless. "You're not that much older than me."

"But I'm wiser," he says, and laughs immediately like he knows that it isn't true. It's at that point that he sets him back down, but he keeps him close as he says softly, "I'm just really proud of you."

"Thanks," he says just as quietly, returning the hug gently before pulling back.

Sylvain crouches down to grab Felix's cap from the ground, shaking the dirt from the tassel and dusting it off before bringing it up to put it back on his head. “There you go. Handsome as ever,” he says with a wink.

Felix gives him a light shove, looking up when he sees that Rodrigue has his cell phone in his hand and is getting the attention of a random passerby to take a picture of them. Begrudgingly, he stands for the picture, between Sylvain and his father, and he almost smiles at the camera.

There are a few more pictures taken, some without Rodrigue and then some without Sylvain, followed up by a handful of pictures of just Felix. He doesn’t have much patience for this sort of thing, but he does his best to get through it, because he knows he’ll never hear the end of it if he doesn’t.

“I think that some of those came out very nicely,” Rodrigue says as he pockets his phone, nodding to himself. “Now then, we’ve got a little bit before our dinner reservations.”

“I’m stopping back at my apartment to shower and change,” he responds. “It was disgusting in there.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but…” Sylvain says teasingly. “Honestly, I should have brought a towel to lay down on the passenger seat to protect it from sweat.”

“I will stab you without any remorse, Gautier,” he says before looking back at his father. “We’ll meet you at the restaurant.”

Rodrigue manages to pull another hug out of him before they part ways.

(One of the few things his father has done in his life that Felix is actually grateful for is take a few candid pictures of the two of them while they weren't paying attention - Felix held up in the air by Sylvain, a rare smile on his lips that he genuinely does not remember being there. Years later, he actually gets them printed and hangs them on their living room wall.)

\---

Rodrigue stays in town for a couple of nights, but eventually finally he returns home and things become a lot quieter. Ashe moved out the day after commencement, having gotten his things packed up in advance, leaving just Felix and Sylvain in the apartment. It reminds him of the very first night that he had moved into the apartment.

Sylvain is staying with him for about a week, so that he can help him get his things packed up and help move him back to Fhirdiad. He also has the benefit of being much better at cleaning than anyone would’ve ever expected from him, which makes him the perfect person to help out after moving everything out.

(Their landlord, knowing they were graduating, had agreed to let them out of the last month of their lease provided they were out of the apartment before the end of the month. Felix suspects that she’ll do everything in her power to keep the security deposit, and even if it’s an inevitable loss, he’ll be damned if he’s not going to try.)

When Felix wakes up on one of the last few mornings that he'll be in this apartment, his head is tucked up on Sylvain's chest. The day before, movers had come for most of the large furniture, so it had been easiest for both of them to just settle in for the evening in Felix's room.

He isn't sure if Sylvain is awake yet or not, but Felix lingers there for a few minutes longer just laying still as if he were still asleep himself.

It isn't something that he would ever admit to, and he also wouldn't go out of his way to seek it out, but he enjoys listening to the sound of Sylvain's heartbeat. It's steady and slow (his resting heart rate at times is just short of registering as being dead), and there's something nice in having one person on the planet that he's actually attained that level of comfort with, that he would be willing to get this close to.

Before too much longer, Sylvain starts to wake up underneath him, a deep inhale marking a yawn that finally brings him to full wakefulness. Nothing happens for a moment until Felix feels a hand in his hair, fingers running through the length of it.

It feels kind of nice, but nonetheless Felix pulls back after a moment, looking up at him. "Hands off."

"Good morning to you too, Fe," he says with a soft laugh. Seemingly just to prove he can, he reaches for him again, curling a lock of hair around his finger before ultimately brushing it behind Felix's ear.

Rolling his eyes, Felix moves to sit up properly. "Morning," he says. "You shouldn't even want to touch it, I didn't wash my hair yesterday."

"And yet, it's soft as ever," he says. "And besides, we both got sweaty yesterday and we were still willing to get in bed together at the end of the day."

"Don't… Don't put it like that," he says, his nose wrinkling. "Any of it."

"Am I _wrong_?"

"Very wrong," Felix says, lifting the blanket and tossing it over Sylvain's head as he got up from the bed. "I'm going to go take a shower. Hope you can cope by yourself until I get back."

"Not a chance," Sylvain says, his voice muffled by the blanket which he seems to have no intention of getting himself out from under.

Still, Felix carries on to the bathroom for his shower. When he turns the water off at the end, he can hear motion coming from the direction of the kitchen and living room, though he can't be sure what exactly it is that Sylvain is up to.

Once he's dressed, he steps out of the bathroom and heads down the hallway to find that Sylvain is in the kitchen. He's actually pretty pleased to see it.

Another secret skill of Sylvain’s is in making breakfast. He makes pancakes from scratch that are just the right amount of fluffy and light, he hits just the right level of crunchiness when he fries up bacon, and his scrambled eggs are inimitable.

Felix leans against the counter and watches him as he cooks, rolling his eyes at the way that Sylvain moves his hips to the music he's playing off of his phone. The sound quality is tinny at best, but it doesn't seem to slow him down at all, mumbling along to the lyrics under his breath.

When he notices Felix has joined him, he looks up with a small smile. "I figured, since we're going to pack up all your kitchen stuff today, might as well make use of this one more time," he says. "Besides, breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

"If you say so," Felix says; he's always been too on the move to be much of a breakfast person.

"Most important," he reiterates with a little laugh. "As a special treat, I even put chocolate chips in your pancakes."

"You didn't."

"I didn't, because I didn't think to buy them. Grab a couple of plates for me?"

He steps past Sylvain to open the cabinet and pull out plates for them, watching the care with which he doles out the food he's prepared.

"There you go, honey," Sylvain says as he hands him his plate, winking at him.

Felix rolls his eyes as he moves to sit down to eat, with Sylvain joining him a moment later. "You can't call me honey," he says flatly. "It's too sweet, you know I hate sweet."

"You're right, you're more of a 'darling' kind of guy," he says with a laugh.

They eat together in silence for a bit, though as the meal goes on, Felix can notice something changing in Sylvain. He’s got a nervous sort of energy to him, and he keeps looking at Felix out of the corner of his eye, but his gaze darts away just as quickly. It's unnerving.

"Alright," he says eventually. "What's going on with you?"

For a brief moment, it looks like he might try to deflect. But then he sighs, shrugs, and says, "I've been trying to work up the nerve to tell you this."

And that… doesn't bode well at all. "Tell me what?"

"Well… I mean, it's not even a big deal, really. Not with modern technology and all. It'll be like when I went to college," he says. He's rambling, and Felix hates it. Any time that Sylvain loses his cool, especially around him, can never mean good things.

"Sylvain," he says, his voice taking on an edge of a warning.

Letting out a long breath, he nods. "Right," he says. "I'm… going to go away for a while."

Even though he had already gotten that impression from what he'd already said, it cuts through to his core. "What do you mean? Where are you going? For how long?" He hates how he sounds almost desperate, but he needs answers.

"Uh, not sure how long exactly," Sylvain admits with a small shrug. "I just… It'll be a bit. I'm going to do some traveling."

"Traveling?"

"Yeah. Like I always meant to do," he says.

Felix nods his understanding, because he does know that that's something Sylvain had planned on doing at some point. He'd wanted to travel for a little while right out of college, but instead his father had pulled him into the family business, despite the fact that everyone knew he hated it and, especially, hated his father. "Okay. Got a rough itinerary?"

"Not really," Sylvain admits, shaking his head. "I'm just going to go and… do whatever feels right as I'm doing it. I've got a couple places I know I want to hit."

"Ingrid would kill you if she knew that you weren't planning."

"Yeah, well, Ingrid can't kill me if she isn't around," he points out with a little grin, though he grows a little more serious again a moment later. "I'll have to pay her a visit before I go, though."

Up until that point, Felix had thought that Sylvain was just being dramatic - as he sometimes could be. He'd probably be gone a few weeks, probably. But he hadn't seen Ingrid in a few months; if he's planning on only being gone a few weeks, there's really no need to go out of his way to visit Ingrid beforehand. "So you're… planning on being gone a while, huh?" He knows he'd already said as much, but he's realizing now how broad "a while" can be.

Sylvain looks at him for a moment. "Yeah, I think so," he says. "Depends on how everything goes."

"How everything goes?" he echoes.

"Yeah. I mean, you know, like… how I'm enjoying myself. That sort of thing," he says.

"What about work? You can't just leave indefinitely and not give them any idea of when you're coming back."

"Correct," he agrees, nodding. "I quit. I'll figure something else out when I get back."

"And… Your house?" Felix asks.

"Not sure," he says. "My dad owns it. He's probably going to, uh, take it back. Which is fine."

"Ah. Huh. Right."

It kind of feels like some kind of sick joke. Felix has finally gotten everything together, and now Sylvain has decided to poke at the Jenga blocks. Of course, he can handle himself; he won't let the tower fall. But it just seems… Unfair.

Still, he isn't about to try and convince Sylvain to change his mind or anything like that. He's a grown man who can make his own decisions, and even if this seems stupid and ridiculous. Maybe even a little bit dangerous, though Sylvain can handle himself; plus, he's picked up the habit from Felix of always carrying a knife on his person.

"You'll have to keep me updated on where you are," he tells him. "If I go a week without hearing from you, I'm going to assume you're dead."

"Does that mean that you'll report it to the authorities so they can find my body, or that you'll just consider me a lost cause?"

Raising an eyebrow at him, he says, "That had better not be a question either of us has to worry about the answer to."

Sylvain laughs and holds his hands up. "Don't worry. I'm not planning on going MIA, I was just curious."

"Good," he says. "The last thing I need is to have to chase you down in a foreign country."

"All I'm hearing is that you _would_ chase me down in a foreign country."

"Idiot. Don't push it," he says. 

From there, Sylvain seems a whole lot more relaxed and happy, like maybe this had gone easier than he'd anticipated. When he talks about his hazy plans, there's something just a little bit sad about him, but Felix suspects he wasn't supposed to notice that.

In spite of himself, when they finish up their breakfast and they move into the kitchen again, he stops Sylvain for a second, wrapping his arms around him in a tight hug. The redhead seems surprised for a moment before returning the gesture.

"I'm going to miss you," he admits quietly, his face pressed into Sylvain's shoulder as if he wants his flesh to absorb the words rather than having to say them aloud.

"I'll miss you too, Fe," he says. "And I'll be back before you know it."

\---

**twenty-seven.**

“I’m going to be picking Sylvain up from the airport tomorrow afternoon,” Dimitri says. “You’re welcome to come with me, if you'd like.”

Part of Felix is torn, because he doesn’t know if it’s a good idea. There’s a little voice in his mind that is overly vindictive and bitter that almost wants to hold off on seeing him just to make him taste what it feels like to be forced to wait. But he doesn’t _want_ to wait to see Sylvain.

There’s another part of him that thinks it might be best to just see Sylvain later, because he’s not sure exactly how he’ll react to being in the same physical space as him again and regardless of his faults, Dimitri doesn’t need to be subjected to the very real possibility of them making out in the airport.

He hasn’t seen Sylvain in person since Derdriu. They’ve spoken plenty of times since then, maybe more than they had before the visit, but it’s still an entirely different animal to think about seeing him in person. It had shaken him to his very core when Sylvain called and told him that he was coming back, for real.

There’s _something_ there. But he suspects that neither of them wanted to put a real label on it until they are face to face again, and maybe Sylvain had still been trying to deal with whatever barriers he’d put up in his mind. Whatever it is, it feels like they’re standing on the precipice and they could jump at any moment.

“Sure,” he says eventually. “If I don’t, who knows what kind of trouble you two will get in on your own.”

With a laugh, Dimitri shakes his head. “Most likely the worst thing that could happen is that we would get terribly lost,” he says. “And we’re far too stubborn to use the GPS in our phones.”

“See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about,” he says. "You're both wrecks."

"As much as I want to resent your saying that… I don't think I can argue against it," he admits. Looking back at Felix with a small smile, he goes on, "And you're coming to the party tomorrow evening, as well, right?"

Felix nods. "Yeah, I'll be there," he says. It's a welcome home party for Sylvain, and Dimitri has rented out their favorite bar for the occasion. It feels like too much, but then again Sylvain _has_ been gone for years.

"Great," he says with a nod, giving him a small smile. "Well, I should probably get going and check in on how things are going with that."

"Alright," he agrees, content to have his home to himself for the rest of the evening so that he can get minorly obsessive over Sylvain's return until he sees Dimitri again.

As Dimitri grabs his coat and slips it on, he looks back at Felix. "Have a good evening, Felix," he says. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah. See you."

\---

Felix almost wishes he had one of those ridiculous signs that people bring to the airport - it feels like the sort of thing that Sylvain would do, actually - even though he is fully aware that Sylvain won't need it to recognize him (especially not with Dimitri towering next to him, with everyone around them giving him a wide berth) because he feels like he can't keep his hands still. He needs something to occupy them.

"He says his plane has landed and they're starting to disembark," Dimitri says as he looks up from his phone, locking it and putting it into his pocket. "So he probably won't be long now."

"Great," he says, and it comes out sounding far more sarcastic than he intends for it to.

A brief moment passes where neither of them says anything, and he can feel those blue eyes on him almost uncomfortably. "Are you alright?" he asks. "Did something happen between you and Sylvain?" 

And honestly, Felix does not have the time nor the energy to explain everything to Dimitri. He supposes that that is one inconvenience that comes with refusing to speak to him for years. "Kind of," he says instead. It's the easiest way to get to the truth with as few words as possible.

"A good something or a bad something?" 

Felix shrugs, but he also knows he's not really being truthful. "Good, probably," he admits. "It could be good."

Nodding in satisfaction, he gives him a small smile. "Good, then," he says. "I hope it works out for you."

With that, Dimitri has turned his attention back to looking ahead towards the escalator where arrivals have been coming down, like it's just that easy.

After a few more minutes pass, Sylvain appears on the escalator. He spots them the same time they spot him, and he starts to actually walk down the steps until he's blocked by a couple of tourists who apparently haven't gotten the "walk on the left, stand on the right" memo.

Once he manages to escape the elevator, he makes a beeline for them. His eyes dart between his two friends as he gingerly sets down the bag in one of his hands, but ultimately he ends up pulling Dimitri into a hug first.

"Oh Goddess, my bones, they're crushed," he says dramatically as Dimitri hugs him, laughing when the blonde pouts at him and starts to give him an earnest apology. "Don't worry, Dima, I just forgot how good your hugs are."

"It _has_ been a while."

"But don't worry, I'll be around a while now," Sylvain assures him, now turning his attention to Felix. "I didn't know you were going to be here."

"Well, here I am," he says with a small shrug, and before he knows it he's being tugged into a hug as well.

"I'm glad you're here," Sylvain says into his ear, his voice just barely above a whisper, before he pulls back and gives him a smile.

"I am, too," he says. It's easier to admit it now.

Sylvain looks a little bit like he wants to say something else, but Dimitri starts talking instead; it's probably for the best anyways, since this isn't the time or place.

"It looks like your luggage will come up at carousel seven," Dimitri says, squinting at the arrivals board a short distance from them. "We should head down there." 

As they're waiting for Sylvain's baggage to come around, he stares at Felix before seeming to decide to take his chances, slinging an arm around his shoulders.

Felix raises an eyebrow at him, but otherwise doesn't comment. If he allows himself to lean into him a little bit, then that is purely because he didn't get that much sleep the night before.

"Do you think Dedue's going to be around sometime? I need to thank him for his tips on navigating Duscur," Sylvain says. "And I figured I should get him some of the spices and stuff he said he could only get there."

"I'm sure he would appreciate that," Dimitri responds with a small smile.

"Yeah. Somewhere in my bags, I've got souvenirs for a bunch of people. It'll be a good excuse to go on a grand tour of everyone," he says.

Felix rolls his eyes. "As if you needed an excuse," he says. "The excuse is that you've been gone for years."

"Alright, you've got a point there," he says with a laugh.

"Everyone was very excited to hear that you were returning," Dimitri says. His phone goes off again and he looks down to read it. He frowns, then after a moment he goes on, "Ah. I think there's something I need to attend to, if you don't mind me dropping you off, it shouldn't take long."

"He needs to take a shower anyway," Felix says without really thinking about it.

"Damn, are you saying that I smell _that_ bad?" he asks, feigning offense.

Taking advantage of their position to give Sylvain a firm elbow to the ribs, he says, "No. You've got a thing about planes."

"Ah. Well, that's a fine point," Dimitri says with a small nod. "If that works for you, I can drop you off, and by the time you finish showering I should probably be heading back that direction. Felix's is more convenient, if that's alright with you?"

"Sure," Felix says. It makes more sense than going all the way out to Dimitri's home, anyway - the bar is also closer this way, if he's correct in assuming it's about the party - and his agreement only has a little to do with the fact that he just kind of wants Sylvain to be in his home. It will make it feel more real.

"Perfect," Dimitri says, nodding in satisfaction with that plan.

It's about then that Sylvain's luggage appears, and he only lets go of Felix because he has to in order to grab his bag. Dimitri insists on taking it from him and they all head out to his car, all the while having a conversation about how unlikely it would have ever seemed that Sylvain could manage to pack as light as he has ("the hair products alone should've been the size of this bag!"). 

Felix sits in the back of the car on the drive, staring at Sylvain as the two men up front talk; he follows the conversation to some extent, but he's far more lost in thought. The thing about inviting Sylvain to his place is that it means they'll be alone for a little while, and Felix is simultaneously anxious for it and dreading it. He doesn't know how to have a "defining the relationship" talk.

But Sylvain himself doesn't seem bothered in the slightest. He's got that lazy smile on his lips as he talks, sharing some story about his days on the beaches of Brigid, and how certain drinks will forever taste like those memories.

The ride feels almost too long, but eventually they're in his driveway. Sylvain retrieves one of his bags from the back in order to have something to change into, keeping his smaller carry-on with him as well, then follows Felix inside as the car pulls away. 

"Huh. You really made a home of this place," he comments as he looks around the entryway. He carries on towards the hallway, where there are some pictures hung up.

"I live here," Felix responds with a small shrug. There's something unsettling about having Sylvain scrutinize his home, and he clears his throat. "You remember where the bathroom is, right?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"Towels are in the cabinet just outside the bathroom door," he says.

"Before I go, though, can I…" he pauses, kneeling beside the carry-on bag. "Can I let this guy out for a little bit? If he makes a mess, I'll, you know, take care of it." Without waiting for an answer, he unzips the bag, which Felix is now realizing is a cat carrier.

"You… have a pet?"

"Yeah. He's a little jerk, but he's my little jerk," he says. The cat takes another moment before emerging from the carrier, taking a few cautious steps as he eyed his surroundings warily. He is a decently big cat, though it was hard to tell given the sheer volume of white fluff covering his body.

"I thought you were more of a dog person."

Sylvain shrugs. "Maybe. But this guy found his way to me instead. Plus, aren't you a cat person?" Seemingly satisfied that his cat is comfortable enough here, he gets back to his feet and heads further down the hallway.

A moment later Felix hears the door click closed. He sits down on his couch, closing his eyes and just listening to the sound of running water. Within a few minutes, he feels a tentative paw against his leg.

"Yeah, alright. C'mon," he mumbles, reaching his hand down to scratch behind one of the cat's ears. He seems to accept the invitation, jumping up and making himself comfortable on Felix's lap.

Sylvain emerges from the bathroom about half an hour later in sweatpants and a t-shirt, and as much as Felix doesn't give a shit what Sylvain wears himself, he has to do him the favor of stopping him from walking into a party in his honor wearing fucking sweatpants. "Oh, hey. You made a friend."

"I have. Go change," he tells him. "Surely you've got some jeans or something. And a nice shirt. Even a v-neck."

"Why? What's wrong with this?" Sylvain asks, looking down at himself.

"Nothing is wrong with it, but it's not something you'd wear out," he says. "And you're not staying in."

"I'm not?" He tilts his head slightly, akin to a dog, and it shouldn't be cute.

Felix shakes his head. "I tried to point out the wisdom in waiting at least a _day_ to let you rest, but no one listens to me," he says with a shrug. "So there's a welcome home party for you tonight."

"Oh," he says.

"I wasn't supposed to tell you, so do me a favor and act like you're at least surprised when you walk in."

"You got it," he says, giving Felix a quick salute before he continues on to dig around in his suitcase to find something that will be better suited for the occasion.

"By the way, what's the cat's name?"

"Oh. Ha. Feline."

"What? You - you named your cat fucking Feline?"

"Yeah. Feline Fraldarius. He reminded me of you."

After dropping that mystifying statement on Felix, he disappears into the bathroom again for a little while, and it feels like a safe bet that he's also working on his hair.

Sylvain is dressed much differently when he comes back out of the bathroom again, and he joins them on the couch.

"Feline Fraldarius?" Felix asks him again.

"Yeah. Mostly, it was a dumb joke, but it was a nice reminder of you," he says. "He's a reminder of you, in general. He's adorable and sweet, but also prickly. And armed."

As if to demonstrate this point, Feline Fraldarius flexes his paw, kneading into Felix's thigh.

"How did you end up adopting a cat?"

"I was a little lonely. Little homesick," he says.

It's not really an answer, and he wants to say _If you were homesick, you could've come home._ But he knows that's a bit too aggressive. "I guess I don't mind the namesake. He's cute."

Still, Felix had expected to have some kind of conversation about where they're at when he returned, but they don't get much farther than that. Whatever catastrophe had struck was apparently quick to take care of and Dimitri returns in fairly short order, whisking them off to have a late lunch ("On me, of course!"). But he's learned to be patient.

\---

The first person he interacts with at the party is Ingrid (after she gives Sylvain a fierce hug and then a slap which is heard around the bar).

"Don't," he says immediately, because he knows where she's going to go with this based on the look on her face.

"I'm not going to do or say anything," she says, holding her hands up in a gesture to indicate her innocence. "I was simply curious." 

Perhaps against his better judgment, he had told her about everything revolving around his feelings for Sylvain after his trip to Derdriu. It had felt like the right thing to do at the time, but now he feels uncomfortably on display.

"There isn't anything to be curious about," he tells her.

Ingrid frowns at him, like she isn't sure if he's just lying. "Dimitri said he left Sylvain with you."

"He did," he says, and suddenly he's wondering if the entire thing was set up. It would mean Ingrid had talked to Dimitri about this, but he also wouldn't doubt that. Though, if that had been the goal, he really should have given them a bit more time if he wanted to actually accomplish anything. "He showered."

"You didn't talk?"

"Not really," he says, shrugging. "We talked about his cat."

Sighing, she shook her head. "You should talk to him."

"You think I don't know that?" he asks. Letting out a huff, he says, "It's not like I'm avoiding it. We just have plenty of time ahead of us. He only just got back."

"I… guess so," she agrees. "I just want to make sure you don't miss out and hurt both of you in the process."

He doesn't care about her worries about missed chances; he remembers the way that Sylvain had sounded assured that there was something inevitable between them. He doesn't know that he agrees with that, necessarily, but he does trust Sylvain. "I won't."

"Okay. I trust you," she says, then reaches out and places a glass, empty save for ice cubes and a few drops of whatever she'd been drinking in the bottom, in his hand. "There. Now you look more natural."

But before long, her attention is drawn away because Sylvain is trying to talk the bartender into allowing him access to the bottles to show off some "tricks" he's learned. After that, Felix is left alone for the most part, standing at a table in the corner and quietly nursing his beer (attained when he went to the bar to return Ingrid's empty glass).

Felix is thinking again about how much he hates parties when he finds himself face to face with Sylvain again, as if he needed such a pointed reminder of why he's bothering with any of this.

They haven't really had any time with just the two of them since he delivered Sylvain to the party, but that isn't surprising. Everyone here wants a piece of Sylvain, and Felix knows that he's seen him far more recently than pretty much all of them have.

"Felix, hey," Sylvain says as he appears in front of him, a hand coming out to rest on his elbow. "Glad I found you."

"I didn't think I was that hard to find," he comments.

Shrugging, he shakes his head. "Okay, you weren't. But everyone loves me so much, it was hard to actually get to you."

"You're such a cocky asshole," Felix comments, rolling his eyes at him.

"Maybe so. But you love it."

Despite a little bit of grumbling, he doesn't dispute it. Sylvain wouldn't be himself if he wasn't so loudly self-assured (and quietly not very self-assured at all). "Sure. So, what did you want me for?"

Sylvain opens his mouth, glancing around him before the light touch to his elbow turns into a solid grip, lightly tugging him along. "It's loud in here, let's go on the roof," he suggests.

"Running away from your own party?" he asks though he can't exactly complain for the excuse to leave.

"Everyone's gotten a piece of me by now. Except you," he reasons, leading him up the stairs.

Most of the time, the rooftop is an open area of the bar, but it's been more or less closed in the colder weather. But it's a relatively warm evening, and it's comfortable enough being up there.

Sylvain kneels down to plug in the string lights that are strung up around them, looking pleased with himself when he looks around as he stands back up. "There. Now that'll set the mood."

Shaking his head, Felix huffs. "I've been up here and seen these lights plenty, it'll take a little bit more than that to seduce me."

"I doubt that. But I'm also… not really trying to seduce you. To be clear."

Leaning against the railing and looking down at the street below them, he says, "I know you're not. I know what it looks like when you're actually trying to seduce someone."

"Pretty sure my usual tactics wouldn't work on you anyway," he points out.

It's quiet for a few seconds, in a way that is somehow both familiar and uncomfortable. Felix gets the impression that they're both waiting for the other to move first, and he's never been one to shy away. "Alright. Are we going to talk about it?"

Sylvain doesn't say anything for a moment, and he wonders if maybe he _doesn't_ want to talk about it. But then he speaks. "I think sticking around in one place will actually be good for me. Get into therapy again. Having roots is good. Feline helped remind me of that."

"Huh," he says. "A cat inspired you that much."

"It wasn't all the cat," Sylvain says with a chuckle, shaking his head. "It was you, too. Everyone here. My connections that I knew I couldn't just leave behind. I learned that from you."

Nodding slowly, he watches him with narrowed eyes. "If you say so."

"You act like you don't, but I know how much you care about people," he says. "Besides, you were always the most crucial part of all this."

"Because of how you feel for me?"

"That's part of it, yeah," he says. He pauses. "I also wanted to make sure I was back in time for your birthday."

"You cut it close," he tells him, though there's a few weeks until his birthday. He has no idea what the timetable was like, he's just grateful Sylvain is back.

"A little. But I was thinking I'll hopefully be able to make up for all that lost time."

"You will," he says. "Though you don't owe me anything."

"I owe you a lot, actually, Fe," he says, shaking his head. "But whatever you say." He looks down for a moment, then rolls his shoulders back, and he asks, "Do you still feel the same?"

It feels like an enormous question. It's complicated in a way, because he doesn't feel exactly the same way that he had when they'd last visited this topic. But it's also simple, because this is the easiest question he's ever been asked. "Yes," he says. "I want this."

Sylvain lets out a little laugh like he still can't actually believe it even though he just watched Felix say it, and he reaches over to take hold of his hand. "I want it, too," he says. "I want to be with you." 

Felix takes advantage of their clasped hands to pull him in closer to him. He's not much for words; actions have always come easier. He leans up, pressing his lips to Sylvain's.

It isn't fireworks. It doesn't make the ground shake. But it's warm and soft and Sylvain's kiss is like coming home after a long time away.

He leans into him, feeling Sylvain's arms wrap around him and pull him closer. It's a tight embrace, but there's a comfort in that. Even once their lips part, he keeps him held close against his chest.

"I'm not going anywhere," he tells him quietly when he pulls back.

"I know," he murmurs. "I'm just soaking this in."

"You're a sap."

Sylvain laughs. It sounds a little bit like he's crying, but he doesn't look too check. "Can you blame me? I think this situation calls for it," he says.

"Maybe it does," he allows. His hand finds Sylvain's side, letting his fingers curl in the soft fabric of his shirt. "You… really built up the suspence."

"Oh, of course. It's what I do."

"Idiot," he mumbled.

"Your idiot," he says brightly. After a brief pause, he adds, "Actually, on that topic. Just to be abundantly clear, I get to be your boyfriend now? We'll be in a relationship?"

Felix pulls back slightly so that he could look up at him. "Yeah. You'll be my boyfriend," he says. The word feels inadequate, but it will have to do. 

Sylvain kisses him again, just a quick and a little bit urgent thing as if he's been underwater all this time and he's coming up for air. "I like that."

"It works for now," he says.

"For now, huh?" he asks with a grin. "Got big plans, Felix?"

"Maybe," he says. He hasn't been waiting years and years for nothing, after all.

"Hey, don't worry. I want it all with you."

Felix almost wants to ask what exactly he means be "it all," but he's content enough to know that they both see a future here, no matter how obvious that is. "Anyway," he says, shaking his head slightly to himself as if to clear his mind. "I never did ask. What's your plan now that you're here?"

"Oh. It'll take a little while to actually get things to where they should be, but Dimitri's really thrown me a bone," he says. His hand moves to run through Felix's hair, as if he is suddenly now incapable of not touching him. "I'll be staying with him for a little bit until I get to take a look at some other places in person. And he hooked me up with a job. Nothing fancy, but it'll help."

He pushes aside his curiosity as to why Sylvain went to Dimitri for help with that instead of him, instead saying, "You could stay with me."

"What?"

"Stay with me. Then you won't even have to move again," he says. He realizes it sounds terribly impulsive, especially when he's almost never so much as dated before. But he's been _waiting_. "There's a guest room, if you'd like."

"And you're cool with the cat?"

Felix lets out a laugh, shaking his head. "Given his name, it sounds to me like he belongs in a Fraldarius household."

"Mm… You make a very good point," he says with a little grin.

"So we're doing this?"

"Yeah. I, yeah. Let's do this."

Felix slides his hand over Sylvain's chest, feels his heart beating underneath his palm. There's still a lot for them to talk about. He knows they're both still dealing with their own issues, knows that things won't just be suddenly easy. He might end up regretting rushing to have them live together. But he knows himself and he knows Sylvain.

He leans in and kisses him again before he pulls back, and takes hold of Sylvain's hand. "Let's head back down."

He feels lighter than he has in years.

**Author's Note:**

> considering what a major event it obviously was in Felix's life, i do feel a little strange not including anything directly related to Glenn's death. but if I can be for real here, 1) i was torn on how to handle that so ~i just didn't~ and 2) most of the time I was writing this, I was debating whether or not to let him live
> 
> if you read through this and notice a glaring error, please feel free to (kindly) let me know! i'm so lazy
> 
> come say hi on twitter @bigfootsflannel


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